i LI BRARY O F CONGRESS, I 
# _ _ 

♦UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.' 



PLAIN TALK 



ABOUT THE 



PROTESTANTISM OF TO-DAY. 



FROM THE FRENCH 



MOR. SEG-UR, 




/ BOSTON: a 
PATRICK DONAHOE, 
1868. 



s-- p 



-pi^sH 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 

PATRICK DONAHOE, 

In the Clerk's office of the District Court for the District of 
Massachusetts. 




Imprimatur, 

Joannes Josephus, 

Episcopus Boston. 



NOTE TO THE PUBLISHER. 



You ask me, dear sir, " what makes me so anxious 
to publish this work in America? " — Well ! I wish to 
have it published for the sake of Catholic children 
attending common schools, — of Catholic girls living 
out in families, — of Catholic boys serving their 
times, — of all dear and poor friends so often wound- 
ed in the affections dearest to their hearts, and whose 
religion is so often attacked in rude words. 

I herewith hope to place in their hands such arms 
as they can easily use, and will have a telling effect 
on the enemies of their faith. 

TJiree hundred thousand copies of this work had 
been sold in France previous to 1861. 

The original title of the book is Causeries, — a word 
of difficult translation ; Conversations does not ren- 
der its precise meaning. Should any of your friends 
think of a more appropriate title-page, I shall be 
most thankful for the suggestion. 

*V 



VI NOTE TO THE PUBLISHER. 

Beverend Mr. Faye, a Protestant minister at Lyons, 
has publicly complained of the evils caused by this 
little book. In 1859, before the Assembly of Prot- 
estant Bible- carriers held in Geneva, he solemnly 
avowed that " Protestants can never do any good (?) 
with those who have read this book" — A parson of 
Poitiers acknowledged the same almost in the same 
terms ; and we know of Catholics who, having in- 
cautiously admitted doubts about their faith, became 
reassured by reading this plain talk. — The wife of a 
minister in Paris returned the book to a lady friend 
with the remark that, " after reading it she could 
remain a Protestant no longer ; she must consult her 
husband about it." 

Not long ago an estimable English lady learned 
the truth of the Church from this work, became a 
Catholic, and, on her death-bed, directed that this 
little book should be laid on her breast in her coffin, 

God bless the Author! 



PLAIN TALK. 



o^Xo 



PAET FIRST. 

I. Why this little Book? — My plain talk 
on Protestantism is with Catholics, rather than 
with Protestants. It is not an attack, nor a 
controversy either ; it is intended as a work of 
preservation and self -defence. 

The question is often put, — what use to talk 
of Protestantism in these our times ? Protest- 
antism, we are told, has melted away into ration- 
alism and infidelity, so that it has lost all its 
individuality as a religious sect. On the other 
hand, people have too much good sense, are too 
logical, to let it make an impression on them. 

Protestantism is not genial ; of its religious 
nature it shows naught but the ruins. But the 
mere existence of these ruins is a source of an- 
noyance, for, however dismal they appear, they 
still afford a refuge to the wicked who dare not 
show themselves on the highways. Such is the 
dilapidated close of Protestantism within which 

7 



8 PLAIN TALK. 

the enemies of the Church gather every day 
more and more ; they are joined by revolution- 
ists and unbelievers. It covers, with an easy 
protection, their anarchical and impious plot- 
tings. All revolts against church and society 
are there fostered ; and thus those ruins are 
transformed into citadels, and expiring Protest- 
antism thus becomes a great power of destruc- 
tion. 

Revived and reanimated by impious spirits, 
which nestle in its bosom, it casts off piece after 
piece the cumbrous weight of theological armor, 
with which it was covered in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and reveals in its nakedness its essential 
principle of rebelliousness. Retaining, for its 
particular purposes, a biblical cant and some 
religious forms, Protestantism stalks before us 
in the attitude of an aggressive power. It aims 
at nothing less than the total destruction of the 
Church of Jesus Christ ; and to attain this end 
it multiplies churches, chapels, and establish- 
ments of all kinds in the midst of Catholic popu- 
lations. Its colporteurs or carriers glut our 
towns and country with tracts. Here it endeav- 
ors to pervert the intelligence of the educated 
with periodicals, philosophical or literary pub- 
lications. There an avenue is opened through 
the working classes, by entrapping their chil- 



PLAIN TALK. D 

dren. Schools, asylums, and homes are opened 
for them : therein the unfortunate little ones 
are not taught the way of becoming Christians, 
but how to blaspheme the Church. Numberless 
associations are formed, — they wage a war 
against the Catholic religion. We learn from 
the annual reports of biblical, evangelical, and 
other societies, the working and progress of 
their propagandism ; they parade before us, with 
an air of triumph, the millions contributed by 
their party spirit, in all countries, to feed their 
zeal and reward their success. 

Hence it cannot be an idle thing to occupy 
ourselves about Protestantism. Timid souls will 
object that there is no good in raising annoying 
disputes ; we reply that not only we have a 
right, but it becomes our duty to defend the re- 
ligion which is assailed, and to protect that 
which is to us dearer than life, the Faith we 
have received from God, and from our fathers. 
This small book will contribute its small efforts 
to this great work. I cannot but think that 
many souls will greatly profit by being shown, 
in a series of conversations in very plain talk, 
what Protestantism is ; how false and hollow its 
system, how opprobrious its origin, its ineffi- 
ciency as a religious worship, its affinity with 
rebellion and anarchy ; and, lastly, how it must, 



10 PLAIN TALK, 

without fail, lead people to an abyss of self- 
destruction. 

These pages will not contain elaborate dis- 
quisitions, or metaphysical researches. I ad- 
dress myself to Catholics : they know their 
religion, and, hence, I do not insist on those 
points of doctrine which are well known, and 
which I would explain more at length, were I 
to address Protestants. 

The question of the Reformation led me 
through a vast number of works, edited by 
Lutherans, Calvinists, Methodists, etc. I have 
met with extraordinary avowals on the part of 
Protestant pastors and writers, and have quoted 
those among them who are the most honored 
by their co-religionists. 

This book may perhaps provoke recrimina- 
tion on the part of Protestants. I cannot there- 
fore insist enough on the fact that I stand here 
only to defend the Faith against attacks, the 
violence whereof surpasses all belief. There exist 
men who loudly proclaim to have received the 
mission of destroying our holy religion : one of 
their acknowledged leaders, Agenor de Gas- 
parin, uttered the following language in regard 
to the Catholic Church : " It is not allowed before 
God, to hate her only half way J 9 (Les Ecoles du 
doute et l'ecole de la foi, p. 26.) 



PLAIN TALK. 11 

II. Proteus was a fabulous being, who could 
assume all appearances, and thereby escaped 
research and attacks. 

Proteus is the real type of what is called 
Protestantism. One is at a loss how to define 
it ; it is almost impossible to lay one's hands upon 
it. It appears under different forms at Paris, 
and at London, in Geneva, and in Berlin, at 
Berne, or at New York. Ay more, it varies in 
every ward of a city, in every church, in the 
head of every minister, and, we may say it, in 
the mind of every Protestant. Here it teaches, 
says, and believes what elsewhere is denied, 
point blank : yet it is Protestantism everywhere. 

What is, then, Protestantism? 

Is it a religion ? — No, it is only a collection 
of sects. 

Is it a Church,or a conglomeration of Churches ? 
— No, Protestantism is the individual. 

Is it an institution ? — No, it is a rebellion. 

Is it an instruction ? — No, it is a negation. 

Protestantism protests; it goes no farther. 
The name is merely a negation ; and this ex- 
plains why the name has lasted for three hun- 
dred years, albeit the changes of Protestantism 
are numberless. Protestantism being only a 
renunciation of the ancient Christian Faith, the 
less it believes, the more it will protest^ and the 



12 PLAIN TALK. 

more will it prove true to its name. Its name 
becomes truer every day it shall live, to the last 
moment of the existence of Protestantism ; then 
it will die, like the cancer, which is extinguished 
with the last bit of the flesh it has devoured. 

Nevertheless, the fable tells us that Proteus 
was caught at last. Let us try to do the same, 
and surprise Protestantism under its thousand 
forms. Let us try to unmask it, and thus forearm 
the Christian, around where it lays its snares. 

IH. Protestantism and Protestants. — Are 
Protestantism and Protestants one and the same 
thing ? — Not at all. Protestants are men beloved 
of God like every other man. But Protestant- 
ism is a rebellion against truth, a rebellion 
which God detests, and curses upon earth, as 
he detested and cursed the rebellion of the 
angels in heaven. We must love the Protestant, 
but detest Protestantism ; as we must love the 
sinner, but detest sin. 

Protestantism is an evil in its nature. A 
Protestant is often a very brave man, always 
immensely above his Protestantism. Generally 
speaking, he is a Protestant only in name, and 
the want of religion in him is frequently a con- 
sequence of his education, and of his associa- 



PLAIN TALK. 13 

tions, rather than a personal and culpable senti- 
ment. 

In my plain talk I do not attack Protestants, 
I attack Protestantism, which I brand as the 
arch-enemy of souls. Above all, I pity poor 
Protestants, a majority of whom are, I believe, 
in good faith. God will show them mercy, if, 
in the midst of this great disaster, which is 
called Protestantism, they honestly endeavor to 
find out the way of truth. 

Protestantism is a deceitful doctrine. Out 
upon all error ! 

A Protestant is a man for whom our Saviour 
has suffered, and for him he died as for every 
other man : he is a brother whom we are bound 
to love. 

IV. Catholicity and Catholics. — Protest- 
antism and Protestants are not one and the 
same thing; nor are Catholicity and Catholics 
the same and one. 

Protestantism is in all cases worse than Prot- 
estants. This is absolutely true, and it can be 
easily understood. The sinner is always better 
than his sin : the man who is deceived is better 
than his error. Sin and error are, in fact, ab- 
solutely and essentially evil ; but the man who 
either sins, or is misled, has always some good 



14 PLAIN TALK. 

quality, some remnant of truth, and purity of 
heart. 

Not so with Catholicity, which is always 
better than the Catholics. Let the Catholic 
be ever so good, perfect, even a saint, he will 
always retain some of the imperfections of hu- 
man frailty and the traces of original sin. The 
Catholic Church guides her follower in the 
ways of God, points truth to him, and is free 
of all alloy, and absolutely good. The Church 
always teaches perfect sanctity, and is therefore 
always superior to its disciple. 

Protestant ministers, in their attacks against 
the Church, often confound the Catholic with 
Catholicity. They make no distinction between 
the disciple, who is always imperfect, and the 
doctrine, which is perfect. Hence the unjust 
recrimination, and often ill-feelings ; and hence 
also obstacles, chimerical it is true, but power- 
ful enough to prevent a return to truth. 

V. Catholics and Catholics — Protestants 
and Protestants. — " Things of the same sort 
are not alike " (il y a fagots et fagots), quoth the 
woodman in the play. It is even so in this 
question : let us make further distinction. 

Catholics are not all alike. We must dis- 
tinguish between Catholic and Catholic: the 



PLAIN TALK. 15 

genuine Catholic and the contraband Catholic. 
There is the earnest Catholic, who can give an 
account of his religion, follow its dictates with 
his whole heart, fulfil the duties of prayer and 
self-denial, be assiduous in works of charity, 
and seek a close union with our Lord. Again, 
there are Catholics only in name, who are in- 
different about their religion, never pray, never 
approach the sacraments, neglect the service of 
God. Be on your guard, lest you confound the 
two together ; never take a bad Catholic as the 
type of Catholics in general. 

Nor are Protestants all alike. Some Protes- 
tants are ardent, ever ready for a fight against 
the Church, prompted by motives of sect and 
propagandism. Others among them are Prot- 
estants because they were born such : they care 
very little for what their ministers say, and, in 
fact, cannot even tell to which of the thousand 
and one Protestant sects they belong. Let us 
not confound these two classes together. The 
former are sectarians and sworn enemies ; in 
their blind zeal they will disguise themselves in 
every possible way to attain their mischievous 
purpose ; and it becomes necessary to tear the 
mask from them and challenge them. The lat- 
ter are simply in a dormant state ; they are 
neither friendly nor hostile to the truth ; they 



16 PLAIN TALK. 

need only to be roused and bring the truth to 
glare on their eyes. 

To the former class belong all those for whom 
Protestantism is a position, if not a profession. 
With them we must class also a small number 
of Protestants, especially those who are en- 
thusiastic, who pay their agents largely, and 
look upon prices as a party concern. 

The latter class reckons among its number, 
with few exceptions, a crowd of mechanics, 
merchants, and good-natured people, who are 
Protestants because their parents were such 
before them. Their religion is that of honest 
people ; and in that they are very much like 
bad Catholics. 

Without establishing this twofold distinction, 
we could not pave our way for our Plain 
Talk. 

VI. HOW IT HAPPENS THAT THERE ARE PROT- 
ESTANTS REALLY GOOD AND STRONGLY RELIGIOUS. 

— We have Catholics, who bring shame upon 
their religion, who belong to the body of the 
Church, yet do not breathe her spirit. Thus, 
also, there are outside the pale of Catholicity 
separated brethren, Protestants, who yet do lead 
a Christian life, and follow the precepts of the 
Gospel. They belong, to a certain degree, to 



PLAIN TALK. 17 

the spirit of the Church, and whatever faith and 
virtue their fine souls possess, it is all the prop- 
erty of Catholicity. They are Catholic at heart, 
and the Church looks upon thern with tenderness. 
They are good Christians, as the word goes, not 
because they are Protestants, but in spite of their 
being Protestants. 

Protestantism is only a negation, and can 
give them nothing. Its influence is limited 
to deprive them of that portion of religious 
resources which they would have, had they re- 
ceived their birth in the bosom of the Catholic 
Church. 

An absolute certainty in matters of faith, a 
perfect and vivifying worship, the sanctifying 
consolations of the sacraments of Penance and 
Eucharist, and devotion to our Blessed Ladj^, 
and so many other resources supplied by the 
Catholic Church, would render these correct and 
virtuous Protestants immensely better. With 
the aid of these powerful means they would 
become saints. Deprived, as they are, of these 
aids, they have no lofty aspirations, and their 
piety, however real it may appear, never rises 
above a common level. 

Our saints are, after all, only good CatJiolics. 
But what a difference there exists between such 
as a Saint Vincent of Paul, a Saint Francis of 
2 



18 PLAIN TALK, 

Sales, a Saint Francis Xavier, a Saint Teresa, 
and those honest and honorable men, whose life 
is often quoted for a proof of the truth of Prot- 
estantism ! 

Lavater, a Protestant minister, in his Letter 
to the Count of Stolberg, remarks : " The Cath- 
olics have saints, I cannot deny it, and we 
have none ; at least none that are like the 
Catholic." 

VII. Why are there more bad Catholics 
than bad Protestants? — First, because the 
number of Catholics is far superior to that of 
Protestants. In a large city, like Boston, there 
must be, of course, more bad people than in 
Brookline or Hull. 

Again, the Catholic religion is in very earnest 
enjoining upon us, on the part of God, a precise 
and obligatory belief, many noble duties, a de- 
termined worship and well-defined and indis- 
pensable means of sanctification. 

This is all divine, it is true, but it is arduous 
nevertheless, and human passions do not find 
their interest in it. The Catholic catechism 
foresees all and leaves naught to hap-hazard. 
It is not satisfied with a vague and vapid relig- 
iousness ; its dots the i (as the French proverb 
has it) , and tells you most explicitly what you 



PLAIN TALK. 19 

must do, and what you shall not do, under 
penalty of proving yourself a bad Catholic. 
It commands the practice of exterior observ- 
ances, which are irksome, because they clash 
with our corrupted inclinations. Abstinence, 
fast, confession, etc., etc., must be irksome, of 
course. One must needs to have great energy 
and great perseverance to keep within the limits 
of this narrow path. 

It is not so on the broad way, or rather on 
the boundless desert, over which Protestant 
sects wish us to wander. Certainly, especially 
at the present time, the religious baggage of 
Protestantism is not very heavy. Nothing is 
easier than to be a good Protestant. It is not 
I who say so, but one of the best known and 
and most stirring parsons of Paris. Tracing 
the character of a writer,* whose panegyric he 
draws, and whom he introduces to us as an ex- 
cellent Protestant, he says : " Of dogmas he be- 
lieved very little .... As for truth, he knew 
not how to look for it in the dogma, or even in 
the Gospel. He believed that there was a 
germ of truth in the holy Scriptures; but he 
believed them to be mixed up with all kinds of 
errors, and fancied that with their aid we might 

* Mr. de Sismond, Protestant historian. See the Journal 
of Lien, 



20 PLAIN TALK. 

maintain and prove everything alike .... He 
believed little in prayer .... He heartily 
detested Catholicity.' ' There you have the 
Christian. That will do. There you have the 
Protestant, according to the minister Coquerel. 

You see, dear reader, 'tis not very hard to be 
a good Protestant. Believe whatever you choose 
in matters of religion. Believe nothing at all, 
if it suits you better. Be honest, as the world 
understands it. Read the Bible or not, as it 
pleases you ; go to church or do not go ; forget 
not to subscribe to one or two or three Bible 
and Evangelical societies ; but, above all, hold 
the Catholic Church in abomination, — and you 
shall be a good Protestant.* 

We shall now quote the opinion of Count de 
Stplberg, an illustrious Protestant, and a con- 
vert to the Catholic Church : it will come with 
more grace from his own mouth : — 

"I have always observed that the worst 
Catholics become very easily the best of Protest- 
ants, and even parsons ; but it is my every 
day's experience that a good Protestant, such 

* J. J. Rousseau says of the Protestants of Neufchatel that, 
" in their estimation, he is a Christian who goes to hear the 
sermon every Sunday: during the interval he may do as ho 
please." — Lettre au Marechal de Luxembourg. 



PLAIN TALK. 21 

as I was, finds it a very hard work to become 
even a passable Catholic." 

Were we not following close the Protestant 
ministers, and were we not reading their writ- 
ings, we would scarcely believe the religious 
nothingness which lies concealed under the 
convenient cloak of Protestantism. The un- 
principled Eugene Sue exclaimed with great 
truth, on the sight of this facility, that " the 
surest means to unchristianize Europe was to 
Protestantize it." 

VIII. Protestantism is separated from the 
Church by an Abyss. — The agent of Protest- 
ant propaganclism generally opens his way to 
an unsophisticated and ignorant mind with the 
remark, that " Protestant or Catholic, it is 
almost all the same ! " And Catholics are to 
be found who echo this blasphemy, without the 
least thought that thereby they offer a grave 
insult to the Church, their mother. 

You say Protestantism, with its myriads 
of subdivisions, is about the same as the 
Catholic Church! Do you understand your- 
self ? You might as well say that counterfeit 
money is about as valuable as good coin. 

Where the Church affirms, the Protestant 
denies ; where the Church teaches, the Protest* 



22 PLAIN TALK. 

ant revolts. In the Catholic Church, the unity 
of faith, worship, and religion, is fundamental 
and perfect. Among the Protestants, every 
man believes as he chooses, and acts as he 
believes : theirs is religious anarchy, an opposi- 
tion to unity. They agree on only one point, — 
hatred of Catholicity. 

The distinct, infallible teachings of the Church 
are the rule of faith for a Catholic. The 
Protestant rejects the Church, despises her au- 
thority, and takes for his guidance only the 
Bible, which he interprets as he best may, or as 
he chooses. 

The Catholic reveres the Pope as the vicar of 
Jesus Christ, the head of the faithful, the chief 
pastor, the infallible doctor of the law. But 
the Protestant looks upon him only as the anti- 
Christ, Satan's vicar, and the arch-enemy of the 
gospel. 

The Catholic adores Jesus Christ really 
present in the Eucharist ; the Protestant sees 
in it only an empty symbol, a piece of bread. 

The Catholic reveres, invokes, loves the 
Holy Virgin Mary, mother of God. The 
Protestant feels for her an estrangement so 
insuperable, that it often exhibits itself in con- 
tempt, and even in hatred. 



PLAIN TALK. 23 

The Catholic draws his Christian vitality 
from the seven sacraments of the Church, and 
supports it chiefly by approaching the sacra- 
ments of Penance and Eucharist. The Prot- 
estant does not recognize these sacraments ; 
ay, few are the sects that preserve a true con- 
ception of Baptism. 

And so on with all the dogmas. Yes, I say 
all, even the most essential to the nature of 
religion, such dogmas without which there can- 
not be a Christian. The farther one advances, 
the more Protestantism will protest against the 
faith he has abandoned. In Geneva, Stras- 
burg, Paris, — in almost all the theological 
faculties of French, German, American Protest- 
ants, — their ministers deny the divinity of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, deny the mystery of the 
holy Trinity, and original sin, and sap the very 
foundations of Christianity. 

The Protestant sects about the same as the 
holy Catholic Church, indeed! They are all 
separated from it, more or less, according as 
they are more or less logical, and apply more 
strictly the Protestant principle of free inter- 
pretation. And those sects which still seem to 
bear some resemblance to the Church, are none 
the less separated from her by a wide abyss. 



24 PLAIN TALK. 

IX. Can Catholicity and Protestantism be 
both equally true ? — Evidently no. 

Religion is the knowledge and service of the 
one true God ; hence it must be one, as God 
is. One God, one Truth, one Christ, one Faith, 
one Religion. 

Whoever asserts that the true religion of Christ 
is in Protestantism as well as in Catholicity, 
and vice versa, is either an infidel, that cares 
very little about truth, or an ignorant man, who 
talks at random. 

If two religions which are diametrically op- 
posed, such as the Catholic on one side, and the 
sects on the other, could be equally true, we 
must admit that both yes and no can be asserted 
as equally true on any question upon which two 
disputants may happen to join opposite issues. 

I have given proofs of the fundamental oppo- 
sition which exists between the Catholic Church 
and the different fractions of Protestantism. 
Let us re-quote one : — 

The Church teaches that our Lord Jesus 
Christ is really, truly, and substantially in the 
Eucharist. The Protestant sects deny this, and 
charge the Church with idolatry. In sooth, one 
of the two must be false. But a religion which 
is wrong, even in only one point, cannot be the 
true one. Therefore it is simply impossible 



PLAIN TALK. 25 

that Catholicity and Protestantism should both 
be true. 

X. Keep on the Safest Side. — Melancthon, 
the favorite desciple of Luther, had prevailed 
on his mother to follow him in the path of the 
so-called Lutheran Reformation. On her death- 
bed she called her son, and solemnly charged 
him to tell her the truth : — 

" My son, by thy urgency I have abandoned 
the Catholic Church, and followed the new 
religion. I am about appearing before God, 
and I adjure thee by the living God, tell me, 
and keep not the truth from me, — in what faith 
must I die?" 

Melancthon bent his head, and was silent for 
a while. There was a struggle in his heart 
between love for his mother and the pride of 
sectarianism. But at last he made answer : — 

" Mother, the Protestant doctrine is the 
easiest, but the Catholic is the surest!"* 

Then, if the Catholic religion is the surest, 
surely one should embrace it, and much more 
never abandon it to embrace a less safe one. 

This simple argument, based on good sense, 
determined Henry IV. to become a Catholic. 
A conference on religion was going on in Saint 

* Andin, Life of Luther, t. III. p. 288. 



26 PLAIN TALK. 

Denis, before the king and his court. On one 
side many Catholic doctors ; on the other, the 
ministers Duverdier, Morlas, Salette, and some 
others. 

The historian Perefixe tells us that " The 
king, observing that none of the Protestant 
divines dared to deny that one may be saved in 
the Catholic Church, remarked : * What ! you 
are all of one accord in that there is salvation 
in the Roman Church?' 'Certainly,' rejoined 
the minister, ' provided a man leads a good life.' 
Then, turning to the Catholic doctors, ' do you 
think, gentlemen,' he asked, i that I can work out 
my salvation remaining a Protestant ? ' ' It is 
our belief, sire, and we solemnly profess it be- 
fore you, that having once known the true Church, 
you must enter it, and that there is no salvation 
for your soul if you remain a Protestant.' 

" Whereupon the king judiciously remarked, 
in addressing the ministers : It is then the be- 
hest of prudence that I should belong to the 
religion of the Catholics, and not to yours. 
For, you agree with them that in their religion 
I can be saved ; whereas, in yours, I can be 
saved, it is true, in your opinion, but not in 
theirs. According to prudence, then, I must 
keep on the safest side." 

And he became a Catholic. 



PLAIN TALK. 27 

XI. Is Heresy a great Sin ? — Heresy is one 
of the greatest crimes a child of God can be 
guilty of. It is an apostasy from the Church. 

Faith is the foundation of all religious edi- 
fices, — the first element of Christian life. Ac- 
cordingly, our Lord sums up the whole system 
of religion in faith. At every page of his gos- 
pel he repeats that to be saved it is necessary 
to believe in him, to believe in his word, to be- 
lieve in the word of the Church. 

He that believeth and is baptized shall 
be saved ; but he that believeth not shall 
be condemned. (Mark xvi. 16.) 

Heresy is a sin against faith. It is a delib- 
erate and obstinate rebellion against the divine 
teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ. Her- 
esy subverts the order established by God, and 
separates man from the great Catholic family 
which, on earth and in heaven, is the family of 
God. 

Hence, heresy is in itself a more grievous 
sin, an evil far greater and more baneful, than 
immorality and the inordinations of sensuality. 
These disorders and sins are very bad, indeed, and 
separate a great many from Jesus Christ ; but 
they do not inflict upon the soul an inordina- 
tion so radical and so dangerous as heresy. 

We have, then, the criterion whereby to 



28 PLAIN TALK. 

judge the religious responsibility and heavy 
culpability of those evangelical ministers who 
sow heresy around them. They inflict upon 
society an evil far worse than the emissaries of 
libertinism can inflict. 

XII. Whether a Protestant can be saved. 
— Certainly he can. But let us understand 
each other well. 

" One may be in error; but that is far differ- 
ent from being in heresy." Such was the dis- 
tinction of Saint Augustine instructing his peo- 
ple on the possible salvation of heretics. 
Indeed, one can be deceived without being 
aware of it. An involuntary material error is 
a misfortune, not a sin. Hence one may be 
saved in error. But heresy is a rebellion 
against God and his Church ; it is a sin ; it is 
a crime, — and, therefore, one cannot be saved 
in heresy. 

This is tantamount to say that only an invin- 
cible good faith can excuse a Protestant from 
the sin of heresy, and afford him, in his misfor- 
tune, a possibility of salvation. 

But where this good faith does not exist, the 
heretic is lost, because he parts company with 
truth, which is Jesus, and from the association 



PLAIN TALK. 29 

of truth, which is the Catholic, apostolic, and 
Roman Church. 

But are there Protestants in good faith? 
Can this invincible, good faith be said to exist 
in countries where the Catholic religion is well 
known, — in the midst of Catholics, — where 
the opportunities to find the Church are so 
abundant? God alone can fathom this mys- 
tery ; He alone can judge it. 

To judge from appearances, we are led to 
think that this good faith is very often to be 
found among Protestants, and, above all, among 
those who belong to the working classes, de- 
barred as they are from the means of instruc- 
tion, — that instruction, the working whereof 
renders the learned classes inexcusable. I must 
confess, thart, even admitting the absolute pos- 
sibility of this wonder, I have not the least 
trust in the good faith of ministers, and that I 
greatly fear for their eternal welfare. 

As regards Protestants in good faith, — bona 
fide Protestants, such as can be saved, — I must 
add a qualification, which will make us even 
more apprehensive of their danger. Their sal- 
vation, although possible, is nevertheless much 
more difficult for them than for us Catholics. 

I will tell you why. — At first, the faith of 
a Protestant is always more or less uncertain. 



30 PLAIN TALK. 

But faith is the starting-point, the vivifying 
principle of those Christian virtues, with whose 
aid one can save his soul. The faith of the 
Catholic is clear, defined, and free from all the 
whims of his own mind. 

Again : as I have said before, Protestants do 
not partake of the resources which the Church 
affords to her children, for the purpose of aiding 
them in leading such a life as will secure for 
them a right to heaven. The most powerful of 
these resources are the sacraments of confession 
and communion. Should the great misfortune of 
committing a mortal sin befall men, he cannot 
be reconciled with God but through the con- 
fession of his misdemeanors, and the absolution 
received at the hands of the priest. Should 
he, peradventure, be absolutely unable to go to 
confession, it becomes necessary for him to join 
to a heartfelt wish for the sacrament the deep- 
est sorrow, and the purest and noblest love, 
which is defined — perfect contrition. The very 
fact that this contrition must be perfect renders 
it very difficult and very rare. This contrition 
is desirable in all cases, but it is not indispen- 
sable, when the sacrament of penance is ap- 
proached ; in which case, an ordinary repentance 
will suffice ; for, in this sacrament of mercy, 



PLAIN TALK. 31 

our Lord vouchsafes to forgive the deficien- 
cies of the poor penitent. 

The Protestant who has committed sin has 
not at his command the healing aid of confes- 
sion. He must then have recourse to perfect 
contrition, — the result of a perfect sorrow for 
sin, and a pure love of Gocl ; without which he 
can obtain neither remission of his sin nor eter- 
nal salvation. He cannot unite to this contri- 
tion the wish of going to confession, because I 
suppose him to be bona fide, in good faith, and 
accordingly ignorant of the necessity of this 
sacrament. Tlierefore, it becomes by far more 
difficult for him, than for the Catholic, to be- 
come reconciled with God. 

But, suppose even that, by a favor most 
special, he succeeds in conceiving this perfect 
contrition, he is still deprived of the holy com- 
munion, which has been instituted by our Sa- 
viour precisely for the purpose of nourishing us 
with spiritual food, protecting us against sin, 
if we are innocent ; preserving us from falling 
again into it, if, after having indulged in it, we 
are relieved and purified. In holy communion 
we have, as it were, the food necessary to sup- 
port us during our journey through life. The 
poor Protestant has not this food, and runs 
great risk of becoming faint in his journey. 



32 PLAIN TALK. 

Hence, it becomes difficult for him to be sancti- 
fied and saved. 

Thus, it becomes our duty to make an effort 
for his conversion, and thereby place him in 
the way of securing chances to find, and more 
powerful aids to secure, that whieh is, after all, 
the only end for which we have been placed in 
this world. 

XIII. The Difference between Conversion 
and Apostasy. — Conversion is a duty,, apos- 
tasy a crime. A Protestant entering the bosom 
of the Church becomes a convert. A Catholic 
deserting his Church to join a sect becomes an 
apostate. Why this difference ? 

Listen : The Catholic faith, as taught inva- 
riably for eighteen centuries, consists in a cer- 
tain number of positive dogmas, such as the 
Unity of God, the Trinity, Incarnation, Real 
Presence, Papacy, etc., etc. To put it in round 
numbers, let us suppose these dogmas to amount 
to fifty. On this supposition, the Christians 
have, then, believed fifty dogmas to the begin- 
ning of the tenth century ; up to which time 
there had been only one faith in Christendom. 
At that epoch, the Greeks denied the proces- 
sion of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son, 
and the supremacy of the Holy See, and thus 



PLAlff TALK. 33 

they have maintained only forty-eight out of the 
fifty dogmas of the Church. Hence it is evi- 
dent that we Catholics have always believed all 
that the Greek Church believes, whilst she, on 
her part, denies two of these dogmas, which we 
do believe. 

In the sixteenth century the Protestants 
pushed things a great deal farther, and denied 
still more dogmas. Some denied twenty of 
them, and some thirty ; others admitted hardly 
any. But, however, more or less they may re- 
tain we own all they do own. The Catholic 
Church believes all that the Protestant Churches 
do believe. There is no controversy on this 
point. 

But then, these sects, whatever name they go 
by, are not religious, because they have been 
formed only by denying this or that dogma. 
They are only negations; which means they are 
nothing in themselves, because from the moment 
they assert they become Catholic. 

Hence follows a consequence, a striking evi- 
dence in itself, to wit : the Catholic who steps 
over to a Protestant sect does truly apostatize, 
inasmuch as he abandons a belief, and denies 
to-day what he believed yesterday. At the 
same time the Protestant, who enters the pale 
of the Catholic Church does not cast off any 

3 



34 PLAIN TALK. 

dogma, lie does not deny anything he believed 
before ; on the contrary, he believes what he 
denied, which makes a great difference : which 
argument is borrowed from Count de Maistre. 

In 1813, De Joux, a Protestant minister of 
Geneva, afterwards president of the reformed 
consistory of Nantes, uttered these words : 
" For my part, I should blame a Catholic who 
became Protestant, because it is not right that 
he who possesses the most should go in quest of 
the less. But I could not blame a Protestant 
who became Catholic, because it is fair that he 
who has the least should aspire after the most." 

In 1825, De Joux became a Catholic. 

XIV. Why do Some become Protestants, 
and Others become Catholics? — 1. Except 
in very rare cases, which are always explained 
by a profound ignorance both of the Catholic 
religion which is abandoned, and of Protestant- 
ism which is embraced, I maintain that never 
did a Catholic become Protestant from Christian 
and accountable motives. 

I have known many so-called Catholics who 
wished to become Protestant. One of them, an 
intelligent and amiable youth was desperately 
in love with the daughter of a Protestant min- 
ister; hence he ardently wished to become 



PLAIN TALK. 35 

Protestant. It was decidedly the most disinter- 
ested conviction of the excellence of Protestant- 
ism. 

Then I knew a priest who had foresworn all 
his duties and led a disorderly life. His bishop 
was obliged to suspend him from his ecclesias- 
tical functions .... to-day he is a Protestant 
minister. 

* A third proselyte, a young German instruct- 
ress, felt humbled at being constrained to live 
in a foreign family. Some Protestant friends 
offered her a situation of great ease, on condition 
that she would renounce her faith. I have it 
written to me in a letter by her own hand- 
writing : " Cost ivhat it may, I must have a 
home/' 

These are only a few instances of what occurs 
every day. The character of these pretended 
conversions is so well defined that the Protest- 
ants are above all annoyed by them. One of 
them wrote that "Protestantism was the sewer 
of Catholicity." Dean Swift said that "when 
the Pope weeds his garden he throws the gar- 
bage over our walls ; " which saying is now 
quoted as a proverb in England. 

In the language of a Protestant Swiss journal 
"While the Catholic Church swells her ranks 
with Protestants well instructed, most intelli- 



36 PLAIN TALK. 

gent, and the best for their morality, our Re- 
formed Church can levy recruits only among 
lecherous and concubinarian monks." In fact 
Luther, Calvin, Zwinglius, Oecolampadius, Bu- 
cer, and many others were all ecclesiastics sus- 
pended for their crimes, unfrocked or bad monks ; 
and since then every bad priest* that treads 
in their footsteps, will throw himself, as if by 
instinct, into the arms of Protestantism, and 
therein find sympathy and protection. They 
were the shame and dregs of the Catholic 
Church, and are transformed at once into minis- 
ters of the pure Gospel. They are heard, 
honored, applauded. Moreover their apostasy 

* As a specimen of this kind of conversions we shall here 
copy a fragment of a letter written, not long ago, to the Bishop 
of Breslau by the only priest known to have apostatized in 
Silesia: — 

" . . . Inasmuch as my ecclesiastical superiors have not 
deigned to take into consideration the motives I have alleged for 
the purpose of being appointed to a charge corresponding to my 
abilities, I feel constrained, after having so long and in vain 
looked for preferment, and from a spite against such treatment, 
to return to primitive Christianity. Accordingly, I have re- 
solved to take for my wife Mile. Leontine Krause, who for 
some time past has kept house for me in a very disinterested 
manner. 

" (Signed) Schulich, Demissionary Curate." 

Poor man! wretched Protestantism doomed to become the 
asylum of such criminals and to legalize such sentiments! 



PLAIN TALK. 37 

is paraded, and the Protestant sects pride and 
feast on what holy Church rejects with loath. 
The apostate monk Achilli, cast away from his 
convent and expelled from his native soil on 
account of his infamous libertinism, was re- 
ceived with an ovation in England.* Other 
wretches of the same cast have met with greet- 
ing and lucrative employment at the hands of 
Protestants in Geneva and Paris. Let the 
Reformation treasure these conquests. We 
give them up with a willing heart. 

Not long ago, a Prussian lady, who had been 
a Catholic for about eight or ten years, thus 
replied with a sad candor to a clergyman, a 
friend of mine, who exhorted her to stand firm, 
as she seemed to be yielding to the entreaties 
and flattering offers of her family: " I became a 
Catholic for the love of God; I am going to be a 
Protestant from love of myself! " — The truest 
solution of the whole question. 

One is poor, and wishes to emerge from his 
poverty ; another is swayed by passions, which 
he does not wish to control ; a third has too 
much pride, and is loath to subdue it ;* a fourth 
is ignorant, and allows himself to be laid away. 
. . . For such reasons people become Protestant. 

* V. Achilli vs. Newman. New York : Dewitt & Daven- 
port. 



38 PLAIN TALK. 

2. IT IS QUITE DIFFERENT WITH THOSE PROT- 
ESTANTS who become Catholic. — I allow that 
human motives may have sometimes influenced 
a Protestant to enter the Church. But such 
cases form only an imperceptible exception. 
We have seen, on the faith even of Protestants, 
that those among them who become Catholic, 
are most honorable, most learned, and the most 
virtuous. Never was this fact more evident 
than in our own times. 

During the last twenty years a vast number 
of Anglican ministers have adjured heresy in 
England. They were the cream of the univer- 
sities of Great Britain, men of learning. Suf- 
fice it to name Newman, Manning, Faber, and 
Wilberforce. But then it is an every-day oc- 
currence to hear of conversions from distin- 
guished men of the clergy, nobility, army, and 
navy of England, and of America, recorded by 
the national papers in spite of themselves. 

Take, for instance, the remarkable conversion 
of Lord Spencer, a British lord of the highest 
nobility. After becoming a Catholic, he enters 
the Congregation of Passionists, a most austere 
and most humble order, in which he was known 
by the name of Father Ignatius. While yet a 
Protestant, he endeavored to prevail on the 
Protestants of all classes to pray for the con- 



PLAIN TALK. 39 

version of England, on condition, however, 
that if the Catholic Church was that of Jesus 
Christ, the Lord would vouchsafe to bring 
England back to that Church. After becoming 
a Catholic he continued with a persevering 
zeal in this crusade of prayer, which has been 
the source of so many graces to his country. 
(See Catholic World, New York, July, 1867.) 

In Germany, instances of most illustrious 
conversions have been afforded especially in 
sovereign or princely families. In 1817, the 
Duke of Saxe-Gotha, a near relation of the King 
of England, re-entered the bosom of the Church, 
and by his fervid piety became the edification 
of Catholics as well as Protestants. In 1822, 
Prince Henry Edward of Schoenburg became 
a Catholic ; and in 1826, the Count of Ingen- 
heim, brother to the King of Prussia, Frederic, 
Duke of Mecklenburg, the Countess of Solms- 
Bareuth, Charlotte, Princess of Mecklenburg, 
wife to the Prince Royal of Denmark,* etc., 

* Many writers have published catalogues of the most 
celebrated conversions whieh have taken place in this century. 
See among them Rohrbaeher: Tableau des principalts conver- 
sions qui ont eu lieu parmi les Protestants depuis le commence- 
ment du dix-neuvieme siccle; also from the pen of the same 
writer : Motifs qui ont ramene a VEglise un grand nombre de 
Protestants. — See Alzog's Histoire Universalis de VEglise, t. 
III. § 406 and following. 



40 PLAIN TALK. 

etc., etc. Let us add to this catalogue of 
princely conversions that of the brother of the 
present King of Wurtemberg, which took place 
in Paris, in 1851. 

Who has not heard of the Count Stolberg, 
one of the most eminent men at the beginning 
of this century ? He became a convert in con- 
sequence of a close study of the authorities of 
the Bible, of the Fathers and of controversial- 
ists. Truth required at his hands a sacrifice of 
the hopes of a most brilliant career ; but God 
consoled him with the conversion of his entire 
family. 

Stolberg's example carried with it a host of 
German writers, philosophers, and jurists of the 
first class,who became reconciled with the Church. 
The conversion of the famous scholar, Werner, 
was, perhaps, the most remarkable. Having 
gained positions of the highest trust in Berlin, 
he gave them all up, to become a Catholic and 
a priest. He died in the Congregation of Re- 
demptorists. They relate of him, that being 
once at a dinner with some highly distinguished 
Protestants, one of them, who could never for- 
give him for having abandoned the so-called 
Reformation, said before the guests that he 
never thought much of a man who had changed 
his religion. " Nor I either ; and this is the 



PLAIN TALK, 41 

very reason why I have always despised Lu- 
ther," replied Werner. 

Werner's example was followed by other 
scientists of the same nation, such as Frederick 
Schlegel, the Baron of Eckstein, the Aulic 
Councillor Adam Muller, etc., etc. 

In Switzerland, Charles Louis de Haller, a 
patrician of Berne, and member of the Su- 
preme Council, is one of the most illustrious 
Protestants that became Catholic in that con- 
federacy. Like the majority of all those I have 
named above, he had the honor of being perse- 
cuted, deprived of all his titles and offices, and 
lastly exiled by the Protestants, whose toler- 
ance is ever of the same stamp, whenever they 
can have their own way. 

'Haller's conversion was followed, in Switzer- 
land, by that of the ministers Esslinger of 
Zurich, Pierre de Joux of Geneva, and of the 
illustrious ecclesiastical president of the Con- 
sistory of Schaffhouse, Frederic Hurter. He 
made his profession of faith in Eome, in 1844, 
having for his godfather the great painter, 
Overbeck, himself a convert of some years' 
standing, whose life and virtues have been the 
object of so much edification in the Eternal 
City. 

Nor has France been behindhand in giving 



42 PLAIN TALK, 

her quota of conversions from Protestantism, 
especially among ministers. That of Mr. 
Laval, pastor of Conde-sur-Noiveau, was the 
most 'remarkable. He was followed by Mr. 
Paul Latour, president of the Consistory of 
Maz-d'Asil. 

Two years after, in 1846, the conversion of 
M. A. Bermaz took place in Lyons. He had, 
during four years, professed the doctrines of 
the Momiers, and was zealously at work in pro- 
mulgating them through the diocese of Lyons. 
But he abjured his errors and made known the 
motives of his conversion in a pamphlet pub- 
lished in Lyons. 

And in our own days how many Protestants 
in name, how many parsons, above all, would 
willingly throw themselves into the arms of 
Holy Church, were it not for the ties of family 
and temporal interest ? Protestant consistories 
very cunningly hurry young pastors to be married 
immediately after leaving school. Wife and 
children are the greatest obstacle to the con- 
version of a Protestant minister. Many an 
example I could quote to support this assertion, 

America comes in also for her share in the 
number of noble, correct, and virtuous souls 
who have swollen the ranks of converts to 
Catholicity. 



PLAIN TALK. 43 

Suffice it to quote the conversion of the 
Protestant Bishop of North Carolina, Doctor 
Ives. It is well known how highly esteemed 
he was for his excellent character, learning and 
science. He sought the truth with an honest 
heart, and, as he found it, he abandoned all to 
possess it. The Protestant Bishop gave up his 
opulent bishopric, and undertook a journey to 
Rome, to throw himself at the feet of the Sov- 
ereign Pontiff. On the 26th of December, 1852, 
he made his profession of faith in the Pope's 
private chapel. Throwing himself on his knees 
before the Holy Father, he presented to him 
the ring and the seal, — the insignia of the emi- 
nent place he whilom occupied among the Pro- 
testants, and as he surrendered them with the 
cross he wore on solemn occasions, " Holy 
Father ! " he said with tears," here are the marks 
of my rebellion!" — "They shall be hence- 
forward the token of your submission, and as 
such go and lay them on St. Peter's tomb," 
replied the Vicar of Jesus Christ. 

Let now Protestantism set off its conquests 
against these men, so great for their virtues, 
their position, their 'love of truth! We shall 
not ask illustrious names, — men who for great- 
ness of talent, or nobility of character, might 
offset those we have just named. Truly it has 



44 PLAIN TALK. 

none : else they would have been proclaimed 
from the house-tops. Yet we would be satisfied 
were they to point to us, at least, some honest 
and virtuous, well instructed and practical Cath- 
olics, who have left our ranks, urged by the 
want of a better belief, and such as have edified 
their new sectaries with an exemplary life.* 

I defy the Protestants to bring forward only 
one. The apostates who pass over to Protest- 
antism are generally individuals who hope to 
better their fortune in a change of religion, or 
else sour spirits who wish to obtain revenge by 
giving scandal ; while the Christians who emerge 

* Not long ago a Protestant minister held with a priest of 
the French missions a conversation in a stage, which is well 
worth relating here. The minister, with resentful, albeit 
polite terms, was remonstrating with the missioner for the late 
recruits obtained out of the ranks of Protestantism. " But," 
answered the priest with a smile, " you have as many on your 
side." "Ah!" replied he, with great naivete, "you give us 
your garbage, and take our cream." (Foi et lumieres 2d ed. 
p. 193.) 

A writer quoted by Mr. Foisset, in his Catholicity and Prot- 
estantism, has said: "Had I the misfortune of not being Cath- 
olic, two things would disturb me, I must confess. The 
first, the number and superior mind of those who have believed 
in the Roman Church after examination, ever since the times of 
Luther and Calvin. Secondly, the number and superior mind of 
those who, after examination, have abandoned Luther and Cal- 
vin to go over to Rome. I would hence come to the conclusion 
that there is room for examination, and I would examine." 



PLAIN TALK, 45 

from Protestant sects to enter the Church of 
Jesus Christ look for and indeed find a faith 
that is solid, clear, and definite, comfort, peace, 
holiness, and love. 

I shall now, by way of conclusion, quote a 
well-known tact, the consideration whereof has 
already shaken many Protestant consciences. 
There is scarcely a Catholic Priest, how- 
ever limited the Sphere of his Action may 
be, who has not been called to receive into 
the Church a dying Protestant ; while there 
is no record whatever of a sincere Catholic 
who has wished to become Protestant at the 
moment he was summoned to appear before 
the Tribunal of God. 

Ignorance, bad passions, a forgetfulness of 
divine justice, goad unhappy souls to Protest- 
antism. 

A correct conscience, healthy learning, a love 
of truth, and the fear of God, lead souls back 
to the Catholic Church. 

Draw your conclusions now. 

XV. Is Protestantism after all a Relig- 
ion? — Perhaps I shock some one's sensitive- 
ness by saying, no. 

What is religion? It is a covenant of Doc- 
trine and Yforship which binds people together 



46 PLAIN TALK, 

in one belief and in one uniform manner of 
serving God. — Thus, e.g., among false relig- 
ions, are Judaism, Mahomedanism, Buddhism, 
etc. 

Very well : Protestantism lays down as a 
fundamental principle that every man is per- 
fectly free to believe as he chooses, and to serve 
God as he pleases. Therefore, Protestantism 
makes away with the very idea of religion, which 
implies bond, union, unity. I know very well 
that Protestants do not always draw the ex- 
treme and rigorous consequences of this prin- 
ciple. In Catholic countries, and above all in 
France, they keep up, as much as they can, 
the appearance of union among the different 
sects. But in Germany, for instance, in Switz- 
erland, in America, where they have plenty of 
elbow-room, they actually boast of having as 
many beliefs as there are individuals. 

Of all religious institutions, built by the hand 
of man, Protestantism is distinguished by this 
trait of destroying what constitutes the essence, 
I will not say of true religion, but of all 
religions in general. All false religions, in 
imitation of the true one, have a code of belief 
and worship, the rejection whereof excludes one 
from belonging thereto ; whereas what the rev- 
erend gentlemen endeavor to pass for religion 



PLAIN TALK. 47 

is but an anarchy without rule or restraint, 
which only denies, destroys, protests : it bears 
the mark of self-condemnation by appropriating 
the anti-religious title of Protestantism. 

Never did Jean Jacques Eousseau utter a 
greater truth than when he said of the Cal- 
vinists of Geneva, that " their religion consists 
in attacking that of others." 

But, you'll say, I know Protestants who be- 
lieve in Jesus Christ, or hold other truths with 
a belief which seems well defined and precise. 
You must allow that such, at least, have re- 
ligion. Not at all. They have some convic- 
tions, or, as they are more generally designated, 
some persuasions; all which is very good, and 
we praise the Lord for it. But it is not Prot- 
estantism that gives them those personal con- 
victions, those individual persuasions. They 
may throw them aside to-morrow, and still not 
cease being Protestants. Not a few ministers 
glory in their name of Protestants, and still do 
not believe in any of the dogmas held by Lu- 
ther or Calvin, and ridicule the Bible and the 
divinity of Jesus Christ, at the same time 
making a great noise about Christianity and 
pure Gospel. 

The parson Vinet candidly acknowledges, 
with a great many more concessions of the same 



48 PLAIN TALK, 

kind, that Protestantism is not a religion, but 
the bond of a religion. (Le lien (Tune religion. 
Essai sur la manifestation des convictions relig- 
ieuses.) 

It is well known how the celebrated Bayle, a 
Protestant by birth, and an infidel in practice, 
made reply to a distinguished personage who 
had questioned him about his belief. "You 
are a Protestant, Monsieur Bayle, but of what 
sect? Are you Lutheran, Calvinist, Zwinglian, 
or Anabaptist?" "I am none of all these," 
answered the consistent Protestant ; " I am a 
Protestant, which means, I protest against all 
sorts of religion." 

Protestantism, in spite of its pretensions, is 
not and cannot be a religion, much less is it 
the true religion. 

XVI. Does Protestantism believe in Jesus 
Christ? — Thank God there are yet Protest- 
ants, honest and religious, who believe in 
Jesus Christ. But is it because they are Prot- 
estants that they believe in him ? Not at all. 
You can be a Protestant, a genuine one, ay 
more, a Protestant pastor of souls, without 
being in the least obliged to believe in the 
divinity of the Redeemer. The pastor Co- 
querel, of Paris, has just published a thick 



PLAIN TALK. 49 

volume (La Christologie) for the purpose of 
developing this doctrine. It has been a general 
belief, for the last eighteen hundred years, that 
to be a Christian it was necessary to believe 
that Christ was the incarnate God.- According 
to M. Coquerel, this is a mistake. It matters 
very little whether Jesus be God, or some su- 
pernatural being, or a common man. Why 
bother one's head about it ? After all, one can 
be a very goo<f Christian without making so 
many distinctions. 

Mr. T. Colani, the learned editor of the 
" Protestant Theological Review," published in 
Strasbourg, takes particular pains not to con- 
tradict his brother of Paris, and teaches his 
pupils, who are trained to be ministers of the 
Gospel, that one can indeed be a Christian 
without believing in Jesus Christ, and then he 
unctuously adds, " that were both Jesus Christ 
and his sanctity taken from us, it would be a 
great calamity for the world ; but there would 
still remain faith, — faith in the Father, faith in 
God." (Revue de Theologie, Vol. vii., p. 242.) 

Thus M. de Gasparin, an ardent champion 
of French Protestantism, congratulates himself 
on a triumph, as it were unexpected, that of 
seven hundred ministers two hundred at least 

4 



50 PLAIN TALK. 

believed in the divinity of Christ.. (Interets 
generaux du Protestantism, p. vii.) 

It has been proclaimed, from the most illus- 
trious pulpits of the Keformation, that " the 
Saviour was only a Jewish Socrates, the author 
of the best practical philosophy ." 

According to some of the most celebrated 
ministers he was " a simple Babbi, but so many 
of the people persisted in believing that he was 
the Messiah, that at last he believed it himself; 
still he taught only a pure Mosaism, and he was 
condemned to death, and nailed to a cross, and 
laid out having the appearance of a dead man, 
and came to life again after the third day, and 
lastly, after having revisited his disciples on 
different occasions, he abandoned them without 
seeing them any more." 

Nor is it in the writings of Voltaire or Kous- 
seau that I find this infamous parody of the 
symbol of the Apostles ; I read it in the Chris- 
tian Tlieology of Wegscheider (TJieol. Chr. 
Dogm. § 121), which has gone through seven or 
eight editions, and has been adopted as the 
text-book for those who aspire to the ministry. 

It is no wonder, then, that Mr. Leblois, a 
minister of Strasbourg, being formed after those 
principles, should have, on the 31st day of De- 
cember, a. d. 1854, publicly maintained from 



PLAIN TALK. 51 

his pulpit that the worship of Jestjs Christ 
is a superstition, severely denouncing the Pro- 
testant sects that have retained this remnant of 
Popery, and protesting that we must put a stop 
to this idolatry, so repugnant to both reason 
and Gospel. 

Some years ago, the King of Prussia, who is 
both head and doctor of the Prussian Church, 
expressed uneasiness about the orthodoxy of 
the ministers and professors of his faculty of 
divinity in Berlin ; whereupon the Dean indig- 
nantly protested in the name of his colleagues, 
and solemnly declared that all, none excepted, 
believed . . . that Jesus had really existed. It 
was an effort, an exertion for which we must 
really compliment the theologians of Berlin. 
For, their brethren in Germany protest not only 
against the divinity of Christ, but even against 
the reality of his person and of his existence. 
Such, at least, are the logical deductions from 
the assumptions of Strauss, whilom professor of 
Protestant divinity in Zurich, who is the leader 
of a numerous school in Germany. And all 
these gentlemen call themselves Christians, and 
after the example' of Luther, Calvin & Co. ; less 
bold however, the} 7- palm themselves off as the 
reformers of Christianity. 

It is long since the Venerable Company of 



52 PLAIN TALK. 

Pastors — for, thus they style themselves — 
assembled in Geneva, have formally forbidden 
their preachers, by a regulation of the 3d of 
May, 1817, to speak from the pulpit about the 
divinity of Christ. The few old fogies, who 
still persisted in this belief so incompatible with 
the principle of free examination, were obliged 
to separate themselves, and are to this day 
sneered at by the National Church, and nick- 
named Momiers. 

Were it not that my limits are narrow, I 
might here pass in review the different Protest- 
tant countries, and prove, from public and uni- 
versal facts, how Luther's reformation abandons 
everywhere and denies the sacred and essential 
dogma of the divinity of Jesus Christ, — a 
dogma without which Christianity cannot exist. 
However, what we have quoted is more than 
sufficient to warrant our asserting, in the words 
of the unfortunate M. de Gasparin, " The ma- 
jority of Protestants are not Christians ! " 

The dogma of the divinity of Jesus Christ, 
as well as all Christian teachings, are handed 
down to us by the Church, the living and infalli- 
ble depositary of the authority of God. 

I do not hereby mean to say that the Holy 
Scriptures do not prove to us the divinity of 
the Saviour in the clearest terms. But I merely 



PLAIN TALK. 53 

assert that the Scriptures themselves deriving 
all their divine authority from the infallible 
teaching of the Church, whoever rejects the 
Church must needs lose at once the foundation 
of his faith in Christ. 

The Protestants have discarded this authority, 
— hence they have no more any sure guidance 
in their belief, and thus, for the last three hun- 
dred years, their dogmas have dropped off one 
after another. They will end, if they are con- 
sistent, in framing, after a well-known Protest- 
ant, their formula of faith, thus : I believe in 

NOTHING. 

After having rejected the Church, Protestant- 
ism rejects Jesus Christ ; after having rejected 
Jesus Christ, it must reject God himself, and 
thus it will have accomplished its work ! 

This impious work has been already consum- 
mated in a large portion of Germany. There 
exists a powerful and widely-spread association, 
TJie Protestant Friends, who recognize for their 
leaders the three ministers Uhlich, Wislicenius, 
and Sachse. These three men have obtained 
the adhesion of a vast number of German 
pastors ; and the pastors of Berlin, with whom 
those of France so closely fraternize, have very 
often rendered the homage of sympathy to 



54 PLAIN TALK. 

those Protestant Friends. Now, here is Uhlich's 
profession of faith, and his public catechism : — 

" Our belief is to have none." 

"The being which is called God is only a 
fictitious one." 

" The true object of our veneration is our- 
selves." 

The Protestantism dominant in northern Ger- 
many, and above all in Prussia, consists in this 
bold Atheism. It is the legitimate deduction of 
genuine Protestantism. It cannot exist but on 
condition of giving to human thought a perfect 
freedom, or rather an unlimited license. It is 
that or nothing.* 

XVII. Could a Protestant ever tell what 

AND WHY HE BELIEVETH ? 

Never ! The reason thereof is very simple. 
To believe, is to submit one's mind to the teach- 
ings of a personal authority, totally independent 
of the will of him who submits himself and hav- 
ing a claim to such submission. Now, where is 
this authority binding the Protestant to be 
found? In the Bible? But on the admission 

* These heart-rending details are drawn from the interesting 
account of Eugene Rendu, head of the department of the 
Minister of Public Instruction, on the state of Protestantism 
in Prussia. 



PLAIN TALK. 55 

of most considerate Protestants, you have a 
right to interpret the Bible after your own 
views. The consistent Protestant, acting on 
the principle of free examination, believeth not, 
hath no faith. He substitutes his own reason 
for faith ; for the divine authority of a church 
he substitutes the views or vagaries of the hu- 
man mind. 

The Protestant who, in spite of his separation 
from the Church, still preserves a certain Chris- 
tian belief, is like a deserter, who, after his flee- 
ing from the army, still carries with him part of 
his arms and uniform. He rests his belief on 
no support whatever. I defy him to give his 
reasons for it in a serious discussion, I will not 
say before a Catholic, but before an Infidel. 

On the other hand, there is nothing more logi- 
cal and more justifiable than the faith of the 
Catholic. The Catholic is united to Jesus 
Christ, the author of his faith, through the 
bonds of Holy Church, the living and permanent 
institution established for that very purpose by 
the Saviour himself, and connected with him with 
bonds existing for ages. The Protestant has 
severed this divine bond ; and therefore he is 
separated from Jesus Christ although he may 
believe in him. It is not enough to call Jesus 
Lord and Saviour in order to partake of his 



56 PLAIN TALK. 

kingdom: it is necessary to comply with his 
divine will, as he himself expressly declares. 

I shall not stop here to show that a Protestant 
cannot rest his belief on the authority and 
teachings of the pastors of his sect. It is well 
known that it is one of the principles of Prot- 
estantism, that all Christians are equal, and it 
does not behoove any one to play the teacher. In 
the language of the Protestant Jean Jacques 
Eousseau, u Ministers do not know what they 
believe, nor what they aim at, nor what they 
say. It cannot even be ascertained what they 
pretend to believe." (Lettres sur la Montagne.) 

As a comment on these words we add those 
of De Maistre : — 

u As one of these preachers attempts to 
speak, on what does he rest his assertions, and 
what means has he to know that the people be- 
low are not laughing at him in their sleeves ? 
It seems to me as if every one of his hearers 
says to him with a sceptical smile : ' Truly I 
believe that he believes I believe him ! ' " 

XVIH. Christianity and Catholicity are 
one and the same Thing. — When you say 
Christianity you mean Catholicity ; Catholicity 
is not an accidental form, but indeed the only 



PLAIN TALK. 57 

one divinely instituted form of Christian re- 
ligion. 

From the very first ages, the Church of Jesus 
Christ has been called not only Christian, but 
also Catholic, in order to distinguish it from the 
different heresies which cut loose from her, and 
still persisted in calling themselves Christian, 
because they happened to preserve some shreds 
of truth. 

It was our Lord Jesus Christ, who estab- 
lished upon earth this spiritual government, 
this religious and universal monarchy, which 
unites the Christians all over the world in One 
Society, One Church, One Body, which is called 
the Catholic Church. It is Jesus Christ 
himself who has established in this Church the 
Papacy, the Episcopate, and, as an auxiliary to 
Papacy and Episcopate, the Priesthood. The 
Pope, successor of Saint Peter, is, by right 
divine, Sovereign Pontiff of the Christian re- 
ligion, the Pastor of all bishops, of all priests, 
and of all faithful, the Supreme Judge of all re- 
ligious questions, and the Doctor of true faith. 

" There is only one way to be a Christian, and 
that is to be a Catholic," says Bossuet : which 
means to belong not only in sympathy and be- 
lief, but also in avowed and public practice, 
to the Catholic Church, to the Church governed 



58 PLAIN TALK. 

by the Pope, to the only true Fold of Jesus 
Christ. 

There has never been nor can there be but one 
Christianity. If Protestanism were Christian- 
ity, Catholicity could not be it. 

This is not a question of form, it is one of 
nature. The institution of Jesus Christ can- 
not be made subject to the caprice of man, and 
the Protestant who fangles a Christianism to 
suit his own fancy has not the true Christianity, 
that Christianity which our Lord has brought 
into the world, and whose deposit and diffusion 
he has trusted to the Church. 

In our times this glorious name of Christian 
has been strangely abused. From the Protest- 
ant who admits or rejects at will the divinity 
of Jesus Christ, to the Socialist, who sees no 
hope of liberty but in the annihilation of the 
Church, the whole crowd of heretics and revo- 
lutionists make a parade of their Christianity 
— but oh, what a Christianity ! 

To be a Christian is to be a Catholic : outside 
of Catholicity you may be a Lutheran, a Cal- 
vinist, a Mahommedan, a Mormon, a Free 
Thinker, a Buddhist, but you are not, you cannot 
be a Christian. 

XDL Protestantism and Primitive Chris- 



PLAIN TALK. 59 

tianity. — It is very common for certain Prot- 
estant sects to pretend that they have revived 
primitive Christianity, or rather that they are 
the Christianity of Primitive Times. Some 
Protestant authors have endeavored to give a 
color of truth to these pretensions of antiquity 
by forging, with great trouble, interminable 
genealogies, and pointing with a zeal, worthy of 
a better cause, to all the characteristics of the 
primitive Church in the different branches of 
the reformation. Let them do their best to 
cover with dust this Protestanism, which did 
not exist three hundred years ago ; let them 
cover it with cobwebs like those bottles which 
merchants place on the front of their shops, 
but which, on being broken, reveal only sloe- 
wine and vinegar. 

But such boasts are not believed, and many 
Protestant writers, well instructed and conscien- 
tious, avow their absurdity. However, it is not 
in behalf of the Catholic Church that they strip 
the Protestant sects of their pretensions. They 
do not recognize our practices of piety and the 
forms of our worship in the Gospel or in the 
writings of the Apostles : hence they accuse 
the Catholic Church as having encumbered 
Christianity with dogmas and practices which 
have disfigured it ; and in their opinion Catho- 



60 PLAIN TALK. 

licity is as different from the Christianity of 
the primitive ages as the Protestantism of to- 
day.* This is the place to give a distinct and 
true idea of this Catholic Church, which is so 
contradictorily accused both of inactivity and~ 
stagnation, and of restlessness and innovation. 
There never was, nor can there ever be, but 
one Church of Christ, — a Church immutable like 
her head and founder, who is God. But this 
Church is a living body, and however perfect 
she is from her origin, she develops and adapts 
her beneficial influences apace with the progress 
of centuries. Man does not possess at his birth 
that fulness of strength, that beauty of sym- 
metry, that expansion of all his faculties, which 
add so much to the perfection of his nature. 
At his birth he possesses all this ; but he has 
had no opportunity as yet to work out its de- 
velopment. But still he is always the same 
individual, whether he is a tender infant, an 
adolescent, or a full-grown man. Thus the 
Church, which was born with the Twelve Men 
in the cenacle, has grown and developed her 
strength through the growth of succeeding ages. 
Like a splendid drapery, slowly deploys and 
progressively unfolds its beautiful colors, so the 

* See M. de GrASPAKiN, les EcoJes du doute et Vecole de la 
fou 



PLAIN TALK. 61 

Church has successively opened to the world the 
treasures of her doctrine and the sanctification 
which emanates from her bosom. 

The Catholic Church is ever old and new. 
She teaches to-day what she taught in her 
primitive days. Some of her teachings have 
been more clearly defined, according as they 
have been attacked by her enemies, or the wants 
of the people have required more explicit defini- 
tions. 

At the same time, whoever has seriously ap- 
plied himself to the study of antiquity, the 
origin of Christianity, and the writings of the 
Fathers, has invariably found in the documents 
of ancient times repeated proofs of the perfect 
unity of Christian faith and religion, from the 
Apostolic Fathers down to our own times. The 
Papacy, Catholic Hierarchy, the Priesthood, 
the Sacrifice of Man, and the Peal Presence, 
Confession, the veneration of Our Lady, of 
saints and of relics, the prayers for the dead ; 
in a word, whatever is attacked in our belief by 
dissenters, all is fully proven and justified by 
those monuments so venerable and so authentic. 

The discoveries made, during the last twenty 
years, in the catacombs of Kome,* bring to 

* The catacombs are subterraneous galleries tunnelled by the 



62 PLAIN TALK. 

light every day new testimonials of our faith 
and practices. Learned Protestants, on visit- 
ing the capital of the Christian world, admit at 
once the undeniable authenticity and the relig- 
ious importance of these discoveries. Inscrip- 
tions, paintings, monuments, etc., etc., portray 
the forms of our worship, and trace the origin of 
our belief. The catacombs contain numerous 
chapels, with altars, upon which the relics of 
the martyrs are enshrined. On their walls fres- 
cos, greatly injured by the hand of time, still 
reveal the faith of the primitive Christian in 
the Real Presence, in the eucharistical sacrifice, 
and in confession. At every step you meet with 
proofs of the belief in the Papacy, the Episco- 
pacy, and the Priesthood. 

I happened once to visit the catacombs 
with a young Protestant gentleman, who had 
just come from Strasburg, where he had been 
studying for the ministry. He was greatly 
astonished with what he saw. He was a well- 
disposed young man, intelligent, and loyal. 
He did not dare to deny the evidence of what 
he saw before him, and knew not what to say. 

Christians of the three first ages of the Church under the out- 
skirts of the city of Rome, to be used both as cemeteries and 
an asylum during the persecutions. Many conversions are 
occasioned by visits to the catacombs. 



PLAIN TALK. 63 

I have not seen him since. God grant that 
those mighty truths, so plainly spoken to his 
heart from the walls of the catacombs, may 
lead him to the pale of Catholic Unity ! 

XX. Why does the Catholic Church speak 
Latin? — Because she is apostolic; because she 
never varies her doctrine ; because she is one 
and catholic. 

1. The Church is apostolic. She is the Church 
of St. Peter and of the Apostles, and she has 
guarded with tenderness all the precious mem- 
ories of the Apostles. When they parted for 
their mission over the four quarters of the globe, 
to announce to all nations the Gospel of Sal- 
vation, they found that two languages were 
spoken and understood by the two great divis- 
ions of mankind, — the Latin in the West and 
the Greek in the East. Hence they preached 
the Faith in Latin and Greek ; their teachings 
and their constitutions were written in those 
two fine languages ; and the Church has pre- 
served these monuments with a religious ven- 
eration. This is the reason why her language 
in the West is Latin, and Greek in the East. 
Yet that, which in fact is a testimony in favor 
of the Church, is made the theme of reproach 
to her. 



64 PLAIN TALK. 

2. Providence had already disposed every- 
thing in advance. Latin and Greek became 
dead languages, and hence invariable ; whereby 
they became wonderfully adapted to formulate 
the doctrines of the Church, which knows no 
variation, because she is divine. An interest- 
ing calculation, instituted on the changes of 
living languages, has shown that had the Church, 
instead of adhering to the Latin of St. Peter, 
St. Paul, and St. Mark, etc., adopted the 
French, she would have been obliged to modify 
the formula of the sacrament of Baptism one 
hundred and sixty times ; otherwise this for- 
mula would never have expressed in the correct 
language the idea it must convey. By this we 
can form an idea of the transformations which 
the Credo should have undergone, to say noth- 
ing of the decrees of primitive councils and of 
ancient Popes ! 

3. The Church speaks Latin, not only because 
she is unchangeable, but because she is cath- 
olic, which means universal, and has to address 
herself to all times, nations, and countries. 
During the three or four first centuries the 
Latin was the language of the civilized world, 
and, although a vernacular language, it had that 
catJiolic, i. e. universal character which is in- 
dispensable to the language of the Church. 



PLAIN TALK. 65 

Whilst the world was divided into many na- 
tionalities, the Church still preserved her beauti- 
ful primitive language, and thus remained one 
in her forms as she has ever been in her essence. 

Thus the Church speaks Latin because, first, 
she is apostolic ; second, she is unchangeable ; 
third, she is catholic. 

But, it is objected, Saint Paul directs that in 
all Christian assemblies a language should be 
used which is understood by all the faithful. 
True, he says that much in his Epistle to the 
Corinthians. But the Protestants draw hence 
an objection which has nothing at all to do 
with the present question. The Apostle con- 
fines himself to the preaching, exhorting, and 
instructing the assembled faithful, which all, 
he says, must be done in the vernacular lan- 
guage. The word prophecy comprehends in- 
structions, the speaking on things divine. The 
Catholic Church has invariably followed this 
apostolic command to the letter. Her bishops, 
priests, missionaries, and catechists always em- 
ploy a language common to all, understood by 
all. They speak in the most obscure and poor- 
est dialects in order that the Word of God may 
reach all understandings. The Protestant sects 
have good reason indeed to speak in vernacular 
and modern tongues. Languages of different 

5 



66 PLAIN TALK. 

geniuses, essentially variable, and forever chang- 
ing, admirably express doctrines of such fluc- 
tuating characters. 

XXI. The Simplicity op Protestant Wor- 
ship. — Simplicity is a good thing, indeed, 
wher^ kept within certain limits. However, 
Protestant worship cannot, by any means, be 
called simple; it is hollow and naked. 

Have you ever entered a Protestant temple ? 
Oftentimes, it is one of those ancient churches 
which have been raised to the honor of the 
good God, and it is harrowing to see what the 
cold and narrow-minded heresy of Calvin has 
made of them. When a king falls, his palace 
becomes a house of no more significance than 
that of any citizen, and his throne a common 
chair. By expelling from churches usurped 
from us the King of kings, who deigned to 
dwell therein, the Protestants have desecrated 
them. They have razed the altars on which 
the Divine Sacrifice was offered. The images 
of the Blessed Virgin, as well as of patron 
saints, have been taken away. The confes- 
sionals, wherein innocence was preserved, and 
peace restored to the Christian, have been burnt, 
and four walls, a few benches, a chair, and a 



PLAIN TALK. 67 

desk, behold all that is necessary to pay hom- 
age to the Creator of heaven and earth ! 

In the words of the Protestant Clausen, 
" Catholics consecrate the most wonderful pro- 
ductions of art to the ornament of churches, 
while Protestants shut themselves up within a 
temple devoid of all sorts of ornaments. This, 
however, does not prevent them from lavishing 
immense sums to ornament with decorations of 
art their private residences. Church music is 
looked upon by Catholics as a wholesome part 
of their religious solemnities ;• in Protestant 
countries music is made to resound everywhere 
but in churches." 

The fact is, Protestants know full well what 
comfort is. They love and procure for their 
houses all that is comfortable and sumptuous ; 
but naught for the house of the Lord.* It be- 
hoves, they say, that the utmost simplicity should 
characterize temples and all acts of religion. 
But it would be even more simple to dispense 
with temple and worship. To sleep, to drink, to 
eat, to attend to one's business, to live and die 
without being bothered by anything whatever, 
would it not be the perfection of simplicity '? 

However, we should not be surprised at this 

* Unless it be the comfort of softly cushioned seats. 



68 PLAIN TALK. 

distressing and chilling nakedness of Protestant 
worship. Their temples are not sacred edifices, 
but only places of reunion. They even assem- 
ble, when they find it more convenient, either 
in a Casino, as in Geneva, or in a Theatre, as in 
New York, or in an Academy of Music, as in 
Boston ; it is all the same to them. Should 
they take off their hats in entering the build- 
ing, that is only from a habit of politeness, but 
not from any respect for the walls or benches. 

Pastors wear no kind of sacerdotal vest- 
ments, and why should they? They are no 
priests, nothing must distinguish them from 
their co-religionists, and in fact the garment 
some- of them throw over their black frocks 
appears to be greatly in contradiction with their 
principles. 

We Catholics know very well that God has 
no need of pomp in his worship, and that it is 
only a want of our own heart. We know this 
well. But God had no need either of the mag- 
nificence of Solomon's Temple ; he did not 
need the gold, incense, and myrrh, which was 
offered to him in the grotto of Bethlehem ; but 
who would dare to affirm that those tokens of 
reverence and love were displeasing to him ? 

The majesty of worship raises our souls to 
God through the means of sacred ceremonies, 






PLAIN TALK, 69 

and rivets on prayer the imagination which is 
so fleety and quick in wandering away. We 
are composed of soul and body, and our whole 
being must contribute to give glory to the Lord ; 
our soul offers reverence, adoration, and love ; 
but our senses contribute their part by the 
religious employment in which we occupy them 
in our churches, — an employment which both 
purifies and sanctifies them. 

Divine worship is the expression of faith. 
The warmer faith is, the more splendid is the 
worship ; according as faith is poor, the worship 
is naked. "Thus/' says the Protestant writer 
quoted above, " the outward nakedness of non- 
Catholic Churches is truly in harmony with the 
state of the soul of the worshippers." 

Leibnitz, a Protestant philosopher, writes that 
" he was not one of them, who, taking in no con- 
sideration human weakness, reject from divine 
worship whatever teaches the senses, under pre- 
tension that adoration is to be exhibited in 
spirit and truth." (Systeme Theologique, p. 
107.) 

Pustcuchen - Glanzow, another Protestant, 
adds : " In our temples, by dint of continually 
repeating that God must be adored in spirit and 
in truth, truth and spirit have disappeared al- 
together." 



70 PLAIN TALK. 

XXII. How Protestant Propagandism is 

NEITHER LEGITIMATE NOR LOGICAL. 

When the Catholic Church, through her Bish- 
ops and Priests, points Protestant propagandism 
to Christians as an unjust and hateful aggres- 
sion, non-Catholic journals, and the organs of 
revolution and rationalism bristle up and bitterly 
denounce the Church as having two weights and 
two measures, by despotically forbidding to 
others what she has not ceased to practise from 
her beginning. Such recriminations deserve an 
answer ; and it is very simple. 

All Protestant sects acknowledge that salva- 
tion can be attained in the Catholic Church. 
On the other hand, the Catholic Church has un- 
ceasingly protested that she is the only true 
Church, and that it is necessary to belong to 
her in order to be a child of God. 

Protestants, therefore, are in open contradic- 
tion with their principles when they endeavor 
to wrestle souls from the Catholic Church. 
And the Catholic Church would act in flagrant 
opposition to her own principles, were she not to 
exert her whole power and energy in bringing 
back to Jesus Christ those who have unfortu- 
nately been led out of her fold. 

The Catholic Church, in her efforts to en- 
lighten a Protestant and to bring him back to 



PLAIN TALK. 71 

the true faith, preserves to him the possession 
of all the truth he possesses, and bestows upon 
him all that in which he is found wanting. It 
is a poor man, only half dressed, that she is 
endeavoring to clothe ; what she adds to the 
little he already possesses makes a perfect 
Christian. 

But not so when the Protestant propagandist 
succeeds to seduce a Catholic. It only ends by 
taking away from him a part of his belief and 
giving him nothing at all in return. He leaves 
him half naked, like the unfortunate traveller 
whom the highwayman robs of all garments, 
under the heartless pretence of freeing him of 
all unnecessary incumbrance, and without be- 
stowing on him so much as one rag for protec- 
tion against cold. 

However, it is acknowledged even by Protest- 
ants, that in fact of religious truths, they cannot 
bestow on Catholics aught that the latter do 
not already possess ; and still farther, they 
aver that whatever they preserve of Christian- 
ity, it is all borrowed of the Catholic Church. 

It is worth while to hear Luther, the ardent 
patriarch of the Reformation, on this subject. 
At the meeting of Marburg, when the famous 
dispute between Luther and Zwinglius took 
place, the former maintaining the dogma of the 



72 PLAIN TALK. 

Holy Eucharist against all adversaries, Zwing- 
lius objected to the dogma of the Real Presence 
as a remnant of Popery. 

"Well, then," quoth Luther, "reject also 
the holy Bible, because it is from the Pope we 
have received it. We are forced to acknowl- 
edge, Protestants as we are, that in Popery 
there are truths of salvation, yes, all the truths 
of salvation, and that we receive them from 
Popery ; for it is in Popery that we find the true 
Holy Scriptures, true Baptism, the true Sacra- 
ment of the altar, the true keys which pardon sin, 
true preaching, true catechism, the true articles of 
faith; and, moreover, I say, that in Popery 
true Christianity is to be found." * 

To acknowledge that the Catholic Church is 
the true Christianity necessarily involves the 
consequence that the Protestant sects have not the 

* It may not be amiss to give the original text of this re- 
markable confession : " Hoc enim pacto negare oporteret totam 
Scripturam Sacram et praedicandi officium : hoc enim totum a 
Papa habemus. Nos autem fatemur sub Papatu plurimnm 
esse boni Christianismi, imo omne bonum Christianismum, atque 
etiam illinc ad nos devenisse. Quippe fatemur in Papatu 
veram esse Scripturam Sacram, verum Baptisma, verum Sacra- 
men turn altar is, veras claves ad remissionem peccatorum, verum 
praedicandi omcium, verum catechismum ut sunt; Oratio Dom- 
inica, articuli fidei, decern praecepta. . . Dico insuper in 
Papatu verum Christianismum esse." — See the Protestant 
edition of Luther's works, published in Jena, pp. 408 and 9. 



PLAIN TALK. 73 

true Christianity, because the Church affirms all 
that the sects deny. But at the same time we 
must conclude, as a self-evident truth, that 
propagandism becomes a duty on the part of 
the Church, while on the part of Protestants it 
is merely nonsense, injustice, and an usurpation. 

XXIII. A Convenient Eeligion. — It is 
more convenient, they say, to be a Protestant, 
than a Catholic ; and true it is, — just as true as 
it is a great deal easier to yield to one's passions 
than to restrain them. But the difference is 
that in fact of religion we must not look for 
that which is the easiest, but for that which is 
true, and will lead to God. 

A certain parson once gained over to his sect 
a good woman, who had allowed herself to be 
influenced by his assertions. She was very 
assiduous at the meeting-house ; most regularly 
did she take her little siesta during the sermon 
on Sunday, took great care of the ponderous 
Bible she had received, and never opened it, 
lest she should spoil it, — in a word, she gave 
evident proofs that she had become a good 
Protestant. Her religious fervor urged her 
also to become a member of the famous Protest- 
ant Pence, and of two or three Bible societies. 

The good woman spent several years in this 



74 PLAIN TALK. 

easy piety, and she congratulated herself every 
day on her good luck of enjoying such sweet 
life, which her pastor assured her was the pure 
Gospel, free from the unpleasant duty of going 
to confession on the recurrence of great festi- 
vals, receiving communion with certain very 
particular preparations, abstaining on Fridays, 
and of being obedient to her parish priest. In 
the midst of all this evangelical happiness, 
which was enhanced by the little presents and 
various tracts she received from the minister 
and some deaconess, the poor creature was all 
at once taken down by sickness. A reader was 
appointed to visit her, and read psalms and 
other passages, of which she understood very 
little ; in fact, no more than the zealous reader 
himself. She grew worse, and her physician let 
out expressions which were very far from war- 
ranting her recovery. In the presence of 
death, and at the approach of the judgment of 
God, the poor woman shuddered, and seriously 
thought of her chances. At that light which 
does not deceive, she began to feel that she had 
gone astray from the Faith. She begged of a 
neighbor to bring to her, without delay, the 
priest of the parish, a good and worthy clergy- 
man whom she had known long ago, and whom 
her apostasy had grieved to the heart. He 



PLAIN TALK. 75 

found her in tears, consoled her as well as he 
could, and made her both aware of the enormity 
of her sin, and confident in the infinite mercy 
of God. She made her confession, and was 
reconciled with our Saviour. Then he adminis- 
tered to her Extreme Unction, the Sacrament 
that brings so much comfort to the dying, 
which she had lately been taught to laugh at, 
but the importance and efficacy whereof she 
at this moment understood well. Lastly, he 
carried to her the holy Viaticum, that most 
holy and most adorable mystery, within which 
Jesus Christ veils himself, in order that we 
may approach, and he may fortify us at the end 
of our journey. Having made her peace with 
God and with her soul, the poor woman felt 
happy, and already looked without fear to the 
moment of her entering into eternity. 

On the evening of the same day, the Prot- 
estant minister calls on the sick woman. He 
had just heard of the priest's visit, and he 
could not believe what he called " a scandalous 
defection, a shame to the pure Gospel, a falling 
back upon the superstitions of Babylon." In 
fact, what vexed him most was the talk of the 
neighborhood, as inferences would be made in 
disparagement of the pure Gospel, and hurtful 
to the susceptibilities of the reverend pastor. 



76 PLAIN TALK. 

Accordingly he expostulated in strong, terms 
with the sick woman, reminding her of the 
courage with which she had before rejected " all 
such mummeries, " and those errors which she 
ought to have never again adopted. "Ah! 
sir," replied the good woman, " all this was 
very good when I was well ; your religion is a 
very easy one to live in, but very hard to die in ! 
{Cest bien commode pour vivre, mais c'est le diable 
pour mourir !) 

She felt, the brave woman, that with that 
simple expression she had placed her finger on 
the sore spot of Protestantism. 

Now, a system of religion, which only aims at 
being easy in practice, and discards whatever 
may prove irksome in the service of God, can- 
not be the true religion, — the religion that leads 
to heaven. Protestantism is very convenient 
to live in ; hence it is so horrible to die in it. 
Protestantism is easy, and hence it is false, — 
it is not the religion of him who said z "How 
narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that 
leadeth to life!' 9 from which words we have to 
conclude that we must then struggle to enter that 
gate and to strike upon that way. 

Protestantism, a pretended Christianity, with- 
out obedience to faith, without obedience to the 
authority of the Church, without confession, 



PLAIN TALK. 77 

without eucharist, without sacrifice, without 
works of penance, without practices of obli- 
gation, is condemned by that Gospel whose 
name it so often usurps ; and is it not con- 
demned by Jesus Christ, when the divine 
Master adds those terrible words : " Wide is the 
gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruc- 
tion"? 

XXIV. A Touchstone. — It is easy to dis- 
tinguish the true religion from those which are 
pretentious of being called true. 

Our Lord has solemnly declared that his dis- 
ciples shall be hated by the wicked as he had 
been hated himself: " The disciple is not above 
his Master; if the world hate you, know ye that 
it hath hated me before you" (John xv. 18.) 

Now, history teaches us that from the days of 
the apostles, the hatred and the efforts of the 
impious have always been combined against the 
Catholic Church. Jews, and Pagans, and 
Turks, and the wicked of all ages, and of our 
own times, have always taken for the butt, and 
the only butt of their attacks, the Catholic 
Church, — the Catholic Church alone. During 
the French Revolution the brigands have always 
aimed their first blows at her; they have im- 
prisoned and butchered her bishops and priests, 



78 PLAIN TALK. 

and at the same time have left Jewish rabbis 
and Protestant ministers alone. Read the 
bloody proclamations of our modern revolution- 
ists. Only the Catholic Church awakens all 
their fury. Nor do they only abstain from an- 
noying Protestantism, but they moreover exalt 
it as highly favorable to their anti-Christian 
views. 

This coalition of the wicked against the 
Catholic Church is already an evident realiza- 
tion of the prophecy of our Lord. An ad- 
ditional proof has been afforded by the hereti- 
cal sects, and above all, the Protestant ones. 
Separated from one another, opposed to each 
other in views and interests, condemning one 
another, they will uniformly act in a most harmo- 
nious alliance when there is question of injuring 
or attacking St. Peter's old Church. In the face 
of this common enemy, they become one, and 
they blaspheme in unison. 

Herod and Pilate, whilom enemies, became 
united to crucify Jesus. Heresy and impiety, 
separated as they may be, become united for the 
purpose of outraging, scourging, and annoying 
the holy Church of Christ. 

However, if the Church, catholic, apostolic, 
and Roman, must needs, in imitation of her 
founder, endure her own passion, and thus com' 



PLAIN TALK. 79 

plete that of her Chief, she possesses equally 
with him the promises of life eternal. Ever 
hated, ever blasphemed, she lives, and will live 
forever. Jesus is with her, unto the end of the 
world, and to her alone he has said : " The 
powers of hell shall not prevail against thee." 



80 PLAIN TALK. 



PAET SECOND. 



I. Can the Church ever need Reformation ? 
— Dear reader, however strong and healthy you 
are, you may occasionally be subject to some 
derangement, which, not the least affecting the 
soundness of your constitution, will make it 
necessary that you should purify your blood, 
and have recourse to some medicine. That these 
remedies may attain their desired effect, they 
must be administered with knowledge and pru- 
dence. Place yourself in the hand of doctors 
established for this purpose, and have no re- 
course to charlatans or quacks, who will endan- 
ger your health and perhaps send you to the 
graveyard. 

Thus the Church also, divine though she be, 
may need reforms. The Church is the society 
of the disciples of Jesus Christ. He has prom- 
ised to be with his Church unto the end of the 
world, to preserve in her true faith, and true 



PLAIN TALK. 81 

morality. By the assistance of Our Lord the 
Church is therefore infallible and holy. 

But the Church is composed of men. Popes, 
bishops, and priests are men. In spite of the 
intrinsic sanctity of their ministry, they are 
subject to the imperfections and weakness of 
human nature. We can then well understand 
in what sense the Church has needed and will 
always need reforms. There will never be any 
need of rectifying the teachings of her faith, 
divine as it is and infallible. She will never 
need to reform her morality, which is holy, nor 
change her sacraments, through which she sanc- 
tifies man. But she constantly needs to recall 
to a sense of their duty those among her chil- 
dren,, and even her ministers, who, being but 
fallible, may prevaricate or disregard the ob- 
servance of her laws. 

For eighteen hundred years Popes and Coun- 
cils and Synods have indefatigably labored to 
reform what may become relaxed from time to 
time in matters of discipline. Such was emi- 
nently the work of the Council of Trent, which 
has definitely reformed the Church. 

It was a great mistake of Luther and his 
associates to mix up, in this question, the 
essence with the form, what is divine and un- 
changeable with what is human and susceptible 
6 



82 PLAIN TALK. 

of change* < They have taken into their heads 
to reform the dogma, the rule of faith, and the 
principles of morality. Instead of a true ref- 
ormation they have only begotten a disastrous 
rebellion, which has deformed and upset every- 
thing 

They were quacks, no physicians. Under 
pretext of drawing a decayed tooth they have 
broken the jaw. Instead of purging the system 
they have poisoned it. 

II. Can God have chosen Luther and 
Calvin to reform Religion? — God is holy. 
Accordingly he could never have chosen Luther, 
Calvin, Henry VIII., or the like of them, for the 
purpose of reforming the Church. 

The Protestant historian Cobbett remarks, 
that " Luther, Zwinglius, Calvin, etc., agreed on 
only one point of doctrine, and that was that all 
good works are useless, and certainly their lives 
prove that they followed the principle in ear- 
nest." (Hist. Ref. Prot., vii. 200.) 

What was Luther," in spite of his popular elo- 
quence and the powerful temper of his mind 
but a bad priest? and can there be anything 
more disgraceful? 

Calvin was also an ecclesiastic. Convicted 



PLAIN TALK. 83 

of infamous crimes against nature, he was pub- 
licly branded by the executioner.* 

Zwinglius, a curate of Einsielden, publicly 
avowed, in the presence of his bishop, that he 
had for many years yielded to his lust, and 
would now marry a woman in order to render 
his position lawful before the people. 

All the saints of the reformation are of this 
stamp. The spotless purity and evangelical 
meekness of Henry VIII. is well known ; and 
he is the reformer of England ! That sensualist 
a veritable Barbebleue, had six wives whose 
heads he cut off accordingly as he became tired 
of them. His daughter, Elizabeth, the virgin 
queen, carried out ' the work commenced by 
Henry VIII., and was no less renowned for the 
same fine qualities. The same block could re- 
ceive the heads of the mistresses of the father 
as well as those of the paramours of the 
daughter. 

But Calvin deserves a little more notice. It 
is he who introduced Protestantism in France. 
Galiffe, a Protestant Calvinist, has portrayed 

* This is an historical fact. These shameful stigmas of the 
patriarch of Calvinism having been cast up to them by a 
Catholic writer, Whitacker had the sacrilegious effrontery of 
replying that " if Calvin was marked, so St- Paul and many 
others have been." 



84 PLAIN TALK. 

him, better than any one else, in his Notices 
Genealogiques (t. iii. pp. 21 etc.) published in the 
very heart of Geneva in 1836 : " That name, 
famous for its criminality, raised the standard 
of the most ferocious intolerance, of the grossest 
superstitions, and most impious tenets. A 
terrible apostle, from whose inquisition nothing 
escaped. During 1558 and 1559 he caused one 
hundred and fourteen judgments to be given in 
criminal matters," etc. Mr. Galiffe styles him 
a drinker of blood, and supports all his asser- 
tions with the writings of Calvin himself, and 
with proofs drawn from the public and authen- 
tic archives of Geneva. 

As for Luther, he was an apostate monk, 
living in concubinage with an unfrocked nun, 
and he has been judged by Protestant writers 
with merited severity. His life, after his apos- 
tacy, was that of a libertine entirely taken with 
the pleasures of the table, and animal pleasures, 
so much so that it had become a proverb, in 
occasions of self-indulgence, to say : To-day 
we shall live a la Luther. Benedict Morgen- 
stern, a Protestant writer, records this fact.* 
The Table Talk of Luther can be still found in 



* Traite de VEglise, p. 21. "Si quando volunt indulgere 
genio, non vereantur inter se dicere : hodie lutheranice vivemus." 



PLAIN TALK. 85 

some libraries shelved among obscene books; 
it breathes such a cynism, that it is impossible 
to quote from them. Every one knows that 
ignoble prayer, written in Luther's own hand, 
the authenticity whereof has never been dis- 
puted, and whose conclusion runs thus : " Good 
drinking and good eating ; behold the surest 
means of being happy." 

And they would make us believe that men of 
this stamp have been messengers sent by Our 
Lord Jesus Christ to the Christians charged 
with the mission of bringing the Church back 
to its primitive purity ! — Nonsense ! You 
might then as well believe, with the Turks, that 
" God is God and Mahommed is his prophet ! " 
Good sense ought to prevail over the historical 
falsehoods by which they have endeavored to 
rehabilitate those pretended reformers. 

The founder of the Catholic Church is our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and her apostles are Saint 
Peter, and Saint Paul, Saint John, and the other 
messengers of Faith appointed by the Founder. 

The founder of Protestantism is Luther, and 
its apostles Calvin, Zwinglius, & Co. 

There's a choice for you. 

III. Have the Apostles op Protestantism 
any Credentials to show. — By two infallible 



86 PLAIN TALK. 

marks we can ascertain whether a man who 
presents himself as reformer of the Church is 
in reality sent by God. These two marks are 
holiness and the gift of miracles. 

"We need not speak of the sanctity of Luther 
and Calvin. The world knows what to think of 
their sanctity. The mention of such disgrace- 
ful recollections brings shame to the cheeks of 
candid and honest Protestants. 

As for miracles, they would have liked to 
perform some. But it is not so easy a task as 
that of forming a sect. Erasmus remarks, with 
a sneer, " that none of them could ever heal a 
lame horse." 

Calvin took into his head once to perform a 
little miracle. Unfortunately he failed. He 
hired a man to play the dead, that he might 
resuscitate him. When he came to the spot, 
followed by a curious crowd to whom he had 
innocently promised this proof of his mission, 
God's justice had smitten the partner of his 
imposture, and poor Calvin was well-nigh to die 
of fright, finding the wretch stiff in death. 
This is a fact well authenticated in history. 

But Luther got out of difficulty in another 
fashion. Should any one dare to ask him for 
some miraculous sign by which to prove that 
he spoke in the name of God, he replied with a 



PLAIN TALK. 87 

torrent of abuse, and the unlucky interloper 
was dismissed with the qualifications of being 
an ass, a Turk, a dog, a bedevilled hog. 

The fathers of the Reformation had neither 
sanctity nor the power of performing miracles. 
They were not the envoys of God. 

What spirit has then inspired them with its 
powerful breath ? The spirit of vain-glory, the 
spirit of impurity, the spirit of rebellion, which 
has never ceased to wage a war against the 
Christ and his work: an infernal spirit which 
has begotten heresies, and is the veritable spirit 
of Protestant anarchy. You are of your father 
the devil (St. John viii. 44). 

TV. The Church eminently possesses the 
Divine Proof. — Miracles are the mark which 
excels all others with the evidence of its light. 
Our Lord appealed to this mark alone to prove 
to his apostles and disciples, and then to his 
adversaries, the mysteries of his Divinity ; for 
he said to them, " If you do not believe my 
words, then believe my miracles ; the miracles 
I perform give testimony of me." 

The enemies of Jesus admitted the reality of 
those wonders, and were enraged at the impres- 
sion they made. Tliis man, they said, performs 
so many miracles, and the whole world go after 



88 plain talk! 

Mm! The great miracle of the Resurrection, 
well ascertained by the evidence of the senses 
of seeing and touching, alone convinced the 
obstinate incredulity of the apostles, and 
especially of St. Thomas, who threw himself at 
the feet of the triumphant Christ only after 
having put his fingers into the wounds of his 
hands and feet, and his hand into the ever open 
wound of his Sacred Heart. 

A miracle, the act superhuman and essentially 
divine, is, then, the greatest proof of Jesus 
Christ. It is also the great proof of his 
Church. 

Nor does the Church incessantly perform 
miracles by the virtue of Christ living in his 
saints, but she is, moreover, a living miracle, 
public and never ceasing, such an one as to 
surpass all scientific demonstrations. It is a 
miracle equally intelligible to the poor and the 
ignorant as to the learned and the philosopher. 
St. Augustine, from the very early ages of faith, 
proclaimed loudly that " the establishment of 
Christianity in the world without great miracles 
would be in itself the greatest and most won- 
derful of all miracles." 

The apostles and their disciples for three or 
four centuries raised the dead to life, healed the 
sick, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the 



PLAIN TALK. 89 

deaf, and the use of their limbs to the palsied. 
With only the sign of the cross they caused 
the idols to fall, and the temples of the gods to 
crumble into heaps of ruin. In spite of those 
ages of butchery, in spite of that fury of man 
which even miracles could not subdue, the 
Church, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman, came 
forth from the catacombs haying triumphed over 
humanity. 

She was then herself a great miracle, which 
means a work evidently superhuman attesting 
the almighty power of God. And thus she has 
progressed through all ages, carrying in her 
brow the divine testimony, asserting her rights 
even as Christ asserted his, and having no need 
whatsoever of proving herself. 

The divine fact of her existence, and espec- 
ially of her sovereign pontificate, assumes in 
every age more gigantic proportions. St. 
Irenaeus, even at the close of the second cen- 
tury, quoted this durability of the Roman 
Church, in the midst of contradictions, as an 
irrefragable proof of her divine origin ; but 
what would he say, were he to live in the nine- 
teenth? 

The Church is then a living miracle, and her 
very existence is, I repeat it, the great proof of 
her divinity. Let poor Protestant ministers 



90 PLAIN TALK, 

write and fret as much as they please in the 
face of this divine fact. Like the scribes of 
old, in the presence of Jesus giving life to 
Lazarus, they are crushed by the superhuman 
power of this Catholic fact. 

V. The Reformers their own Judges. — 

There are Protestants who still cling to the 
memory of their great reformers, and are jeal- 
ous of whatever may concern their name and 
fame. Like the children of Noah, they throw a 
mantle over the turpitude of their fathers, and 
raise a cry of indignation should any one allow 
himself to think that Luther and Calvin were 
not patterns of goodness. They continually 
accuse Catholic writers of lying, and slander- 
ing. Luther and Calvin are to them as pure as 
lambs in spite of the verdict of history. 

To give such charges their own weight, and 
to enable my readers to form a true estimate of 
these new apostles, I will only copy the opinions 
rendered by the chiefs of the Reformation on 
one another. As they knew each other better 
than any one else, these portraits will be truly 
after nature. *v 

Let us begin with Luther. All hail to the 
chief! Hear how he is portrayed by Calvin: 
"Indeed Luther is very wicked. Would to 



PLAIN TALK. 91 

God, he had taken more pains in controlling 
his libertinism ! Would to God he had better 
known how to acknowledge his vices ! " 

" When I read one of Luther's books," says 
Zwinglius (GEuvres II. 474), " I think I see a 
nasty swine grunting around and tearing up the 
sweet flowers of a fine garden. Luther cannot 
speak of God and of holy things, but with 
procacity, great ignorance of theology, and im- 
propriety." Luther returns tit for tat, saying : 
" Zwinglius dreams to be a sun that illumines 
the world, but he gives no more light than dung 
would in a lamp . . . stercus in lucerna" 

Nor is Calvin less severely disposed of by 
his collaborators in the work of Reformation, 
those who should have felt most interested in 
palliating his faults. Volmar, his first profes- 
sor, says : " Calvin is violent and perverse : 
so much the better, for he is the man we need 
to further our interests."* Bucer, an apos- 
tate monk, and a married priest, adds a touch 
to the limning : " Calvin in all truth is a mad 
dog: he is a bad man ... Be on thy 
guard, O Christian reader ! against Calvin's 
books." f But hear how Theodore Beza, Cal- 

* See Freundelfeld. Analytical Table of Universal His- 
tory, II. 369. 
t Ibid. Scriptor maledicendi studio infectus, canis rabidus, 



92 PLAIN TALK. 

vin's favorite disciple, treats his master : " Cal- 
vin could never be trained either in temperance 
or in honest habits, or in truthfulness : he was 
always stuck in the mud." 

Zwinglius, according to his favorite disciple 
Bullinger, was expelled from his parish for his 
immorality. In spite of his being a priest, and a 
parish priest, he was publicly married, after the 
fashion of Luther. "-If you are told," says he 
in a letter, "that I have given in to pride, 
intemperance, and impurities, believe it, for it 
is true : I am a prey to these vices and many 
others."* Of him Luther declared that he was 
satanized, in-satanized, over-satanized, and that 
not the least hope could be entertained of his 
salvation. 

Nor has the great Theodore de Beza, that 
pious individual of whom we find so many 
eulogies in Protestant writers, fared any better 
in the opinion of the most fervent partisans of 
the Reformation. Heshussius (transl. of Flori- 
mond, p. 1048) exclaims : " How can any 
one wonder at the incredible impudence of this 
monster, whose lewd and infamous life is so 
well known over all France, through his epi- 
grams worse than cynic ? And still in hearing 
him you would say that he was a holy man, 

* Hospinien. Hist, of the Sacraments, II. 187. 



PLAIN TALK. 93 

another Job, or a modern anchorite of the de- 
sert, even a greater man than Saint John or Saint 
Paul, he boasts so much, on every occasion, of 
his exile, his labors, his purity, and the won- 
derful sanctity of his life ! " — Schlussemberg, 
another writer of the same sect, remarks : 
" This obscene man, equal to a devil incar- 
nate, kneaded with cunning and impiety, can 
do naught but belch forth satirical blasphe- 
mies . . . " 

Shortly before he was smitten with apoplexy 
Luther quoted all these testimonies and added 
with his own hand : "In truth we are only 
blackguards." 

But a truce to this subject. Volumes might 
be filled with the reproaches and recriminations 
which the so-called reformers have bandied with 
one another. On the other hand, the quotations 
which we have before us are of a character 
which we should loathe to place before the eyes 
of decent readers. 

Let, then, the children of Luther and of his 
companions raise no more the cry of calumny 
when a Catholic voice is raised from time to 
.time to give a judgment of their fathers and to 
impeach them. Never did the Church, in casting 
them off, brand them with expressions of such 
crushing force as those they have employed 



94 PLAIN TALK. 

themselves, a small sample whereof we have 
just recalled to mind. 

It would be more to the liking of Protest- 
ants were these revelations, so suggestive and so 
damning, allowed to lie forgotten or hidden. Of 
course, their vanity suffers by such exposures ; 
but is it not necessary that light was made and 
justice rendered in the face of the never-ceasing 
efforts of Protestant propagandism ? 

VI. On the Divisions of Protestantism. — 
During eighteen hundred years, the Catholic 
Church, Apostolic and Eoman, founded by 
Christ, and governed in his name by Saint Peter, 
and the Supreme Pontiffs his successors, has 
preserved the most perfect unity in the teaching 
of faith and in the practice of religion. From 
the beginning have innovators without number 
endeavored to introduce their individual ideas 
into the creed of this great Church. But she 
has invariably repelled them, and her doctrine, 
which shall last eternally, has remained one and 
pure. 

During these last three hundred years, since 
the great rebellion has broken out, Protestant- 
ism has followed a course altogether different. 
Protestantism acknowledges as its fathers the 
Gnostics, the Arians, the Manicheans, the Nes- 



PLAIN TALK. 95 

torians, the iconoclasts, the Albigenses, the 
Hussites, and the most scandalous of heretics. 
As a carcass will swarm with vermin, so this 
corpse of religion, dating its existence from such 
inglorious traditions, has never ceased down to 
our times to produce hundreds and myriads of 
sects which swarm out of its bosom. They 
gnaw its vitals, and gnaw one another. It is 
simply impossible to give the exact statistics 
of Protestant sects. What was accurate yester- 
day would not be so to-day. They spring into 
life and die away like flies. So far back as 
1743, the Protestant minister Froereisen, in his 
address on being installed minister at Stras- 
burg, acknowledged that " Protestantism is 
like a vermin, cut into many pieces which will 
move as long as there exists some strength, but 
will by degrees lose both life and motion." 

In fact, what is a Protestant sect ? Free 
discussion gives each and every one of its mem- 
bers an inalienable right to an absolute inde- 
pendence, so as to break the factitious unity of 
a body to which he is said to belong. Make up 
as many religions as there are sects, as many 
sects as there are heads, and in each head as 
many religious notions as there are whims, 
and you have a befitting idea of Protestant 
unity. The minister Vinet said it with grief, 



96 PLAIN TALK. 

that "from the morrow after the Reformation, 
Protestants have existed, but no Protestantism." 
I have before me an article clipped from an 
American paper giving a list, not complete 
however, of all the sects which existed in the 
State of New York. Let us copy it here : — 
Anabaptists, Baptists, New Baptists, Free Bap- 
tists, Separate Baptists, Strict Baptists, Liberal 
Baptists, Peace Baptists, Small Children Bap- 
tists, Glory Baptists, Hallelujahs, Christian 
Baptists, Iron Arm Baptists, General Baptists, 
Particular Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, Six 
Principle Baptists, Scotch Baptists, Baptists of 
the New Communion General, Black Baptists, 
the Independent or Puritans, the Cameronians, 
Shrivelled or Crispers, Campbellites or Re- 
formed, Dunkers, Free Thinkers, Haldanites, 
Huntingdonians, Irvingites, Inghanites, Jump- 
ers, Biblical Christians, Glassites or Sando- 
monians, Old Presbyterians, and New Presby- 
terians, Scotch Congregationalists, Quakers or 
Friends, Unitarians, Socinians, Moravians or 
Unity Friends, Methodists or Wesley ans, Prim- 
itive Methodists, Reformed Wesley ans, French 
Methodists, Calvinists, Original Connexionists 
and New Connexionists, Swedenborgians, Ply- 
mouth Brothers, Rebaptized Christians, Mor- 
mons, Kelly ites, Muggletonians, Romanian Per- 



PLAIN TALK. 97 

fectionalists, Rogessian Methodists, Secklers, 
Universalists, Walkers, Rothfieldists, Free 
Friend Disciples or Agapemonites, Lutherans, 
French Protestants, Reformed Protestants, Ger- 
man Protestants, Reformed German Protestants, 
German Catholics or Followers of Ronge, New 
Illuminati, English Anglicans, German Angli- 
cans, French Anglicans, etc., etc., etc." Prodi- 
gious fecundity! 

Surely France is not blessed with such an 
abundance. For there exist only some of the 
Reformed sects, the Protestants of the Augs- 
burg Confession, Methodists, Anabaptists, Bap- 
tists, Pietists, Unitarians, Latitudinarians, Dar- 

byites, Irvingians It is, however, 

rather difficult to find out the fecundity of the 
varieties of French Protestantism, inasmuch 
as its pastors generally affect an air of touching 
fraternity, and take great pains to carry on their 
bickerings with close doors, most carefully keep- 
ing out of sight what one of them indiscreetly 
calls clerical family snarls.* They seem afraid 
of French good sense, which would very easily 
draw from their variations and divisions, the 
famous consequence drawn in olden times by 

* Les entre-mangeries pastorales. Le Principes de legality et la 
conscience confessionelle de certains pasteurs soi-disant Luthe- 
riens, par J. Gr. Baum, p. 1, 



98 PLAIN TALK. 

Tertullian against Marcion : " Thou art at vari- 
ance, therefore thou errest." 

How majestic, on the other hand, how grand 
is the Catholic Church, with her hierarchy, 
the guardian of her unity against the intestine 
discords and the interminable dismemberments 
which take place around her ! 

Florimond de Eemond, in his History of the 
Rise and Progress of Heresy, remarks, in his 
old and quaint style : Had ye ever seen a 
regiment of noble soldiers with serried ranks, 
marching under the lead of a cuirassed chief, 
and after them the musketeers in beautiful 
order, and then the arquebusiers, with the rest 
of the troops, all keeping steps to the measured 
beat of the drum, and then had ye seen a swarm 
of monkeys, trotting about the streets carrying 
wooden swords and shouldering long reeds, beat- 
ing their music on a tin pan, and every mother's 
son among them giving orders to their comrades, 
— well, ye would then recognize in the first the 
order of the true Church, and in the latter the 
disorders of those bastard churches which ape 
the True One. 

VII. What we should think of Freedom 
of Thought. — The freedom of thinking is 
simply nonsense. We are no more free to think 



PLAIN TALK. 99 

without rule than we are to act without one. 
Unless we prefer to be disorderly and incur 
damnation, we are bound to have thoughts of 
truth and of truth alone ; just as we are bound 
to do what is right and only what is right. Is 
it not evident ? 

Are you left at liberty to think that two and 
two are not four? Are you free to think that 
the whole is not greater than the part, that vice 
is not better than virtue, that Charlemagne has 
not existed, etc. ? And why are you not left at 
your own liberty on these points, but because 
they are truths ? 

By this universal principle is man's under- 
standing ruled. It must need be applied above 
all, and in all its force, to the most important 
of all truth, — religious truth. We are not free 
to discuss a truth; or to reject it. But the 
mysteries of Christian faith are truths ; and 
such are the Catholic dogmas of the Trinity, 
Divine Incarnation, Original Sin, Redemption, 
Grace, Church, Eternity of Punishment, etc., 
etc. They are therefore all charged on our under- 
standing, because they all are truths. We are 
sure that they are truths because God has re- 
vealed them through his Son Jesus Christ, 
who, in his turn, has entrusted them as a de- 
posit and for an infallible teaching to his Church. 



100 PLAIN TALK. 

Freedom of thought is the soul of Protestantism ; 
it is likewise the soul of modern rationalistic 
philosophy. It is one of these impossibilities 
which only the levity of a superficial reason 
can regard as admissible. But a sound mind, 
that does not feed on empty words, looks upon 
this freedom of thought only as simply absurd, 
and, what is more, as sinful. 

It is the same with the liberty of consci- 
ence, the freedom of saying and doing what- 
ever may please us. Freedom, forsooth ! Such 
freedom that will lead you to perdition, if it is 
not controlled by the divine teaching of Christ, 
and of his Church. 

Catholic authority does not destroy, nay, it 
protects and quickens human thought. It is the 
authority of truth. Its immutability is not the 
restraint which prevents a flight ; it is the guard 
which prevents explosion or destruction. The 
authority of the Church is a guard over human 
understanding in whatever directly or indirectly 
affects religion, which means in every kind of 
doctrines, religious, philosophical, scientific, 
political, etc. 

Only in the Church can the spirit of man, sup- 
ported by authority, find the true freedom of 
thought. 



PLAIN TALK. 101 

VIII. Religious Differences among Catho- 
lics. — Occasionally Catholics are divided on a 
religious question. It is discussed and much is 
written pro or con. Impious people, who cannot 
understand those contests, draw conclusions 
unfavorable to religion itself. But are these 
divisions actually of so much importance as it 
is pretended? Have they any resemblance to 
those of Protestants ? 

Not the least. All Catholics have the same 
faith, because they are all animated by the one 
principle of faith, which is obedience to the 
teachings of the Church. They are all of one 
accord on what is dogma properly so called ; 
while it is against this very dogma that Prot- 
estant sects always split. Their pretended 
meeting on a common ground, which they call 
fundamental points, is only an illusion vanishing 
before facts. Except on God's existence they 
agree in nothing else. Only a short time ago 
M. de Gasparin publicly averred that, of the 
seven hundred ministers, who preached Protest- 
antism and assail the Church in France, five 
hundred did not believe in the divinity of Jesus 
Christ, the holy Trinity, baptismal regenera- 
tion, etc. Many after the lead of Prof. Schoerer, 
of Geneva, do not believe in the inspiration of 
the Bible. It is then precisely on fundamental 



102 PLAIN TALK. 

points, and the only ones which are fundamental, 
that Protestants have become separated, as the 
great Bossuet demonstrated two centuries ago. 

The Catholics, on the other hand, are 
allowed to debate only on such points of doc- 
trine, which the Church does not propose to them 
as matter # of faith, and are therefore qualified 
as opinions. Opinions are open to discus- 
sion, and thus they differ from belief. Hence it is 
that being allowed to defend their opinions, 
Catholic doctors, and even bishops, express 
and maintain their sentiments against one 
another. Interesting dissertations and essays 
are generally the result of these doctrinal strug- 
gles, and in the aggregate they enhance the value 
of theological science, which is not merely the 
catechism of faith, but even the work of the 
human mind superstructed on the unchangeable 
and grand foundation of faith. 

Should the Church think proper, in her wis- 
dom, to define any of these controverted doc- 
trines, the Catholics then are no more at liberty 
to discuss them, and they believe. Opinion in 
that case becomes a dogma, and what was here- 
tofore debatable as doubtful will henceforward 
be certain. 

Moreover these differences among Catholics 
bear mostly on the different appreciation of 



PLAIN TALK. 103 

expedients. For instance ; some deem prefer- 
able for the good of religion that its enemies 
were attacked in front, no compromise al- 
lowed, and their errors met with determined 
energy. Others will qualify this conduct as 
one of violence and of imprudence ; they only 
put a different interpretation on the principles 
of charity, and maintain that it is necessary to 
tame the wolf. 

It is evident that such differences impair not 
our religious unity ; and yet they afford a source 
of scandal to those good Protestant pastors who 
are so very fond of unity, truth, and charity ! 
Verily they are unfortunate people who see the 
mote in our eye, but perceive not the beam which 
obstructs their own sight ! 

IX. How the Teaching of the Church is 
the true Rule of Faith. — By a Rule of Faith 
is understood that which determines what Chris- 
tians have to believe, and what to reject. 

Now, what is this rule to which we must con- 
form ourselves in order to determine our belief? 
Where and which is the true Rule of Faith ? 

Here, as well as in everything else, Protest- 
ants are at variance with the Catholic Church. 
Fifteen hundred }^ears after the preaching of the 
Apostles, Luther finds out that the whole world 



104 PLAIN TALK. 

has been going astray. The true, the only rule 
of faith, quoth he, is the Bible. All Protest- 
ants admit this principle ; but of it more anon. 
For the present let us aver what the Christians 
have believed from the days of the Apostles to 
those of Luther, what we believe ourselves 
after the example of our fathers, and what the 
Christians who will come after us will believe 
to the world's end. 

Our Lord appointed twelve among his dis- 
ciples, and sent them forth to the world, to 
teach in his name and with his authority the 
Christian religion : — 

All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. 

Going therefore teach all nations whatever I 
have commanded you. Matt, xxviii. 

Go ye unto the whole world and preach the 
gospel to every creature. Mark xvi. 

He that heareth you heareth me; and he that 
despiseth you despiseth me. Luke x. 

Behold, I am with you all days, even to the 
consummation of the world. Matt, xxviii. 

By these last words the Son of God makes it 
sure, that the spiritual power and the mission 
of the Apostles was to be a permanent ministry, 
even to the consummation of the world. Now, 
if there exists an irrefutable historical fact, it is 
that, from the Apostles to this day, the pastors 



PLAIN TALK. 105 

of the Catholic Church, ascending through a 
legitimate and uninterrupted precession, to Saint 
Peter and the other Apostles, have exercised 
and do exercise this ministry. 

And in what does this ministry consist? That 
power which is derived from Jesus Christ him- 
self, and by which fallible men teach us infalli- 
bly, and infallibly lead us in the path of salva- 
tion? It is the authority of the Church, to wit, 
the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff, succes- 
sor of St. Peter, head of the Church, and the 
authority of the bishops, coadjutors to the Pope 
in the grand work of the salvation of men. 

This divine authority, intrusted as it is to the 
hands of men, is the true, the only Rule of 
Faith. It has been thus believed in all Christian 
ages ; it has been thus taught by all doctors 
and fathers of the Church. We have to believe 
only what the Pope and the Bishops teach. 
We have to reject only that which the Pope and 
the Bishops condemn and reject. Should a 
point of doctrine appear doubtful, we have only 
to address ourselves to the Pope and to the 
Bishops in order to know what to believe, Only 
from that tribunal, forever living and forever 
assisted by God, emanate the judgment on relig- 
ious belief, and particularly on the true sense 
of the Scriptures. 



106 PLAIN TALK. 

Such is the Rule of Faith followed by all true 
Christians ; it is a rule of divine institution, and 
no one can knowingly reject it without imperil- 
ling the salvation of his soul. He that despiseth 
you despiseth me! (Luke x.) Such is the im- 
movable principle of unity and life in the Church. 
It is owing to this that Catholics have ever 
believed the same one thing for eighteen hundred 
years. 

The Protestants have not this divine rule, 
and hence as St. Paul has it, they are children 
tossed to and fro, and carried about by every 
wind of doctrine. — (Eph. iii. 14.) In spite of 
the Bible, which they hold up so sanctimo- 
niously, they believe to-day what they rejected 
yesterday, to reject again to-morrow the belief 
of this day, until, through a wonderful opera- 
tion of believing and disbelieving, they will end 
in believing nothing. 

Then, it becomes necessary summarily to ex- 
amine this pretension of theirs, by which the 
invariable and ever-living authority of the 
Church in displaced for a book, undoubtedly 
divine, but lifeless and dumb as all books are, 
and which can do no good where it is read in a 
wrong sense, 

X. The Holy Bible is not, nob can it be, 



PLAIN TALK. 107 

the Rule of Faith. — The Bible is undoubt- 
edly the word of God. We Catholics know it, 
even better than Protestants. The Bible con- 
tains naught but what is the teaching of God. 
And yet the Bible is not, the Bible cannot be, 
the Rule of our faith, in the Protestant sense. 

Why? 

First. The Bible cannot be the rule of our 
faith, because Jesus Christ has not said to his 
disciples ' go and carry the Bible,' but he said, 
Go and' teach all nations — he that heareth you 
heareth me. Lessing, a Protestant, remarks that 
" Christianity had already been diffused before 
any of the evangelists undertook to write the 
life of Jesus. They repeated the Our Father 
before St. Matthew had written the words, for 
Jesus Christ himself had taught it to his dis- 
ciples, who had transmitted it to the primitive 

Christians Baptism was administered 

in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost, before St. Matthew had 
drawn up the formula of baptism in his Gospel, 
for Jesus Christ had verbally taught it to his 
disciples." — (Beitrage fur Geschicte und Lit- 
teratur, t. iv. p. 182.) 

To this proof of fact we must add another, 
which Protestants can never answer with even 
the appearance of reasoning. 



108 PLAIN TALK. 

Secondly. The Bible cannot be the Rule of 
our faith, because a simple glance at Holy Writ, 
and especially at the New Testament, will con 
vince us that they do not contain a catechism, 
that is, a clear and complete system of religious 
instruction. The Gospels, the Acts, and all 
the historical books in general, are simply nar- 
ratives offered to the faithful for their edifica- 
tion ; and the Epistles of St. Paul and of the 
other Apostles are unconnected fragments, 
treating of faith and discussing one or other 
point of doctrine ; most of them replies to 
particular questions or allusions to certain er- 
rors which exist no more. The Psalms are, 
for the most, prayers, and the Prophets foretell 
the advent of Christ, and the grand destinies of 
his Church. It never entered the mind of the 
Apostles and of the rest of the inspired writers, 
to give us, in these fragmentary writings, a com- 
plete system of instruction, a formula of belief. 
This is evident and strikes one's mind at very 
first sight. 

Grotius, a celebrated Protestant writer, says 
in his 582d letter: "The Apostles had no 
intention of giving in their Epistles a lengthy 
exposition of the doctrines necessary to salva- 
tion ; they wrote as the occasion arose to answer 
propounded questions." 



PLAIN TALK. 109 

TJiirdly. The Bible cannot be the Eule of our 
Faith, because it contains a great many passages 
so difficult, in their divine depth, as to surpass 
the keenest understanding. The efforts made 
by doctors of the Church in disclosing their 
meaning, often in vain, are an evidence of the 
difficulty which is met in understanding the holy 
Scriptures. "It is impossible" said Luther, 
" to fathom the Scriptures ; we can only skip 
over their surface ; to understand their sense 
would be a wonder. Let theologians say or do 
what they may, the understanding of the divine 
word will ever be above our power. Its sen- 
tences are the breathing of the Spirit of God ; 
and thus they baffle the intellect of man." — 
(See Life of Luther, by Audin, Book ii.) 

What are we then to think of a Rule of Faith, 
which, as even Luther and a host of Protestant 
writers acknowledge, instead of explaining 
faith, needs itself long and elaborate explana- 
tions? On the other hand, Protestants only 
with ill grace deny the difficulties rising in the 
interpretation of the Bible. Their endless dis- 
putes and bitter divisions, on almost every pas- 
sage of the holy book loudly proclaim the truth 
of our assertion. And (which is most remark- 
able) their disputes and divisions have been 
most numerous on the very simplest and clearest 



110 PLAIN TALK. 

passages of Holy Writ. Those words of our 
Saviour at the last supper, This is my body, have 
received upwards of two hundred interpretations 
at the hand of Protestants J 

Fourthly and lastly. The word of God in the 
Bible is not, nor can it be, a Rule of Faith 
for Christians ; because, if it were, then the 
Christian religion would not have been estab- 
lished for the Poor and Little ones, — that is to 
say, for those whom Jesus has distinguished as 
the privileged children of his love. 

However, this last point is worth the trouble 
of being treated apart. 

XI. Protestantism is not, nor can it be the 
Religion of the People. — No ; Protestantism 
is not made for the people. Jesus loves the 
poor and the humble. But Protestantism, in 
giving the reading of the Bible as the funda- 
mental rule of Christian Faith, excludes the 
people from Christianity. In fact, many among 
the poor cannot read, and what is a book for 
those * who cannot read? Again ; many among 

* Let it be kept in mind that for fifteen hundred years, that 
is until the art of printing was invented, hardly any of the 
people knew how to read. According to the Protestant theory 
all these people must have lived without means of obtaining 
faith ! It is simply absurd. 



PLAEST TALK. Ill 

them have no leisure to read, their time being 
wholly taken up with manual labor, and what 
is a book to him who has no time to read it? 
If Protestantism is in the right, if to attain 
one's salvation one needs read the Bible, then, 
in the words of the Lutheran Lessing, " Oh, how 
much do I feel for you, who are born in coun- 
tries where the native language cannot render 
the language of the Bible ! * you, who are born 
in these conditions of society wherefrom all 
knowledge is banished, and cannot therefore 
read the Bible ! You believe yourselves Chris- 
tians because you are baptized? Unhappy 
wretches ! know, that in order to be saved, it 
is as much # necessary for you to know how to 
read, as it is to have been baptized. And yet I 
fear you shall have to learn Hebrew that you 
may make your salvation perfectly sure." 

And even when all the poor will have learned 
how to read, will they have been much benefit- 
ed by it ? Will they not find themselves at a 
stand-still at almost every verse of the Bible, as 

♦From scientific accounts given by learned Protestants it 
has been proven that it is absolutely impossible to translate the 
Bible into some languages; in which words cannot be found to 
render a great number of the ideas expressed in the holy Book. 
Then you have whole nations which can never attain faith, if 
it is to be attained by the reading of the Bible ! 



112 PLAIN TALK. 

we have just said ? Nor can you tell me that it 
will be enough for the people if their pastors 
will read them a lecture on the Holy Scriptures 
once a week ! These explanations rest only 
on personal opinions, are not supported by any 
authority, and will vary according to every in- 
dividual view. It is the word of God no more ; 
it is the word of Mr. A, or of Mr. B, — quite a 
different affair. 

Then whether the people know how to read 
or not, it is absolutely impossible that the Bible 
should be the Rule of their Faith. Had God 
given the Bible for a Rule of Faith, he would 
have kept away from his Church and from eternal 
salvation almost all men ; the wh^ch it is an 
impiety to assert, and none will ever believe it. 

Then Protestantism, telling us, Take up and 
read the Bible ; away with Church and priests ; 
be satisfied with the word of God, as it is given 
in the Bible, — cannot be the religion of the 
people, and accordingly it cannot be, and is not 
the true Christianity, the religion of all. 

XII. HOW IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A PROTEST- 
ANT TO KNOW WHETHER THE BlBLE HE READS BE 

the Word of God. — I defy all Protestants, 
past, present, and future, to prove, without 



PLAIN TALK, 113 

doing violence to their principles, that the Bible 
is truly the word of God. 

As for myself, being a Catholic, the question 
is easily solved. I know what the Holy Scrip- 
tures are. The Church of God, the living and 
infallible authority established by Jesus Christ 
on earth to teach me the knowledge and practice 
of true faith, lays open before me the holy 
books, and tells me in his name : These 
books are the writings of the Prophets and of the 
Apostles. They are authentic ; which means, 
they are indeed written by those to whom they 
are attributed ; and are, moreover, inspired, 
which means, they are written with the assist- 
ance of the Holy Ghost, and they truly contain 
the word of God. I believe in the teaching 
of the Church, and, logical in my faith, I say and 
believe that the Bible is the word of God. 

On the other hand, the Protestant, from the 
moment he rejects the authority of the Church, 
cannot reason as I do. "With Bible in hand, he 
cannot tell you why he has faith in what it 
teaches. 

1. Are the books of the Bible authentic? — 
I will ask a Protestant at once, — how do you 
know that they have been truly written by the 
Prophets and the Apostles ? 

Thus we are in a mesh of historical questions, 
S 



114 PLAIN TALK. 

some among them almost inexplicable. Schoe- 
rer, a Protestant doctor remarks : " Each in- 
dividual is here called upon to give his opinion 
on matters about which doctors have doubts 
and disagree. The most simple among the 
faithful must, before he can trust his faith, re- 
solve questions of authenticity, critic, and his- 
tory. . . In sooth, it is a dish of very palatable 
food for the mind of the faithful ! Behold a 
rule very accessible to the mass of the Christian 
people ! " {La Critique et la Foi, par E. Schoe- 
rer, of Geneva.) But no danger for us Catho- 
lics of being in such mazes. The Church avers 
an authenticity the certainty whereof she trans- 
mits to her children from age to age. 

2. But let us, by an impossibility, grant that 
a Protestant can of a surety know that all the 
books of the Bible have been written by the 
holy authors whose names they bear, will he 
know as well that they are actually inspired, 
and that they are not above the level of com- 
mon good books ? 

It may, in very sooth, be, that Saint Paul, 
Saint John, Saint Matthew have written a num- 
ber of letters, and even religious works, which 
were not at all inspired. Now, how can you 
tell, outside of the infallible judgment of the 



PLAIN TALK. 115 

Church, which one of the writings of those 
authors is, or is not inspired ? 

Will you say that the Holy Ghost, assisting 
as he does every Christian, will give you the 
means to ascertain which books are inspired? 
But, then, how is that you are so little agreed 
with each other on this point, and Luther re- 
jects what Calvin accepts, and Protestants to- 
day receive books which their fathers rejected ; 
as for instance the Books of Tobias, Ruth, and 
Esther, St. James' Epistle, and that of St. Paul 
to the Hebrews, etc. ? What more? Even on 
the four Gospels Protestants cannot agree, and 
this very day some pastors will admit only the 
gospel of St. Matthew, while others will receive 
none but that of St. John. 

This question, a fundamental one if ever 
there was one, on the certainty of the inspira- 
tion of the holy books, must needs* be a stum- 
bling block to the Protestant from the moment 
he becomes earnest in his reasoning. In fact, 
it is a mortal difficulty for Protestantism. 

Thus, many Protestants, wishing to reason 
on their faith, find that their religious edifice 
is based on a very dubious foundation, and 
thereby lose whatever remnant of belief they 
possessed, and fall into rationalism or indiffer- 
ence. 



116 PLAIN TALK. 

3. Let us make a third and last remark. — 
Suppose, then, a Protestant has obtained a 
certainty of the authenticity and inspiration of 
the Bible ; how will he know that the version 
which he uses and distributes among his friends 
is perfectly reliable, and does not substitute, as 
if often happens, the erroneous interpretation 
of the translator for the true and not understood 
sense of the original ? 

Very few indeed know Hebrew well enough 
to make a good translation from it ; and on the 
other hand we are not sure in what language 
some of our holy books have been originally 
written. 

With us the authority of the Church supplies 
the deficiency of these impossible researches ; 
whereas the poor Protestants, halting before 
these difficulties, which they cannot overcome, 
either giv£ up everything, Bible, Faith, and 
Religion, — or their studies, pursued without 
direction, entangle them in the meshes of innu- 
merable doubts, from which they escape only by 
falling into a negation of all truths ; or, lastly, 
they preserve, without the aid of any reasoning, 
their faith in the Scriptures, do not trouble 
themselves with any examination of them, and 
on the guaranty of Catholic tradition, they 
believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible, 



PLAIN TALK. 117 

which Protestantism is unable to demonstrate 
to them. In this they are Catholics without 
knowing it, and happily there are many such. 

Whenever a Protestant appeals to the author- 
ity of the Bible, he unwittingly invokes the au- 
thority of the Catholic Church, whose infallible 
testimony is indispensable in the demonstration 
of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. As 
early as the fourth century St. Augustine pro- 
tested that "he would not believe the Gospels, 
were he not forced to it by the authority of the 
Catholic Church." 

XIII. How far One may be led by the 

Protestant Principle, that " the Bible is 
the Rule of Faith." — Were the Bible, inter- 
preted according to one's pretended inspiration, 
the Rule of Faith, then every reader is bound 
in conscience to believe and do whatever he 
finds in his Bible. 

Now, on the supposition of this principle, 
which is undeniably the grand principle of 
Protestantism, Protestants must needs approve 
all the abominations and impure follies of all 
those sects, so-called evangelical, who, from the 
Anabaptists to the Mormons, have dared to 
sanction their infamy with misunderstood texts 
of the Scripture. Ay, more ; they are bound 



118 ILAIN TALK. 

to acknowledge as legitimate brothers, in sooth, 
as true and logical Protestants, all those Mor- 
mons and Anabaptists and vile Sectarians who 
are the shame of humanity. 

What impurities have not been committed 
under the sanction of those words of the Lord 
"increase and multiply "! A host of secta- 
rians, following in the wake of the Anabaptists 
of Munster, have on the authority of those 
words, dared to legitimate polygamy. On some 
such misapplication of a text from the Gospel, 
Luther, Bucerus, and Melancthon have permit- 
ted Philip, the Landgjrave of Hesse, to have 
two wives. 

In the name of the Bible, of the "Word op 
God, Luther at first incited the German peas- 
antry to revolt against their rulers, and then, 
frightened at his own work, he persuaded the 
princes to massacre the peasants. John of 
Leyden found in his studies of the Bible that 
he should marry eleven women at once. Her- 
mann felt himself clearly designated in the 
Bible as the Envoy of the Lord. Nicholas 
learned from it that there was no necessity of 
anything connected with faith, and that we 
must live in sin in order that grace may abound. 
Sympson pretends to find in the Scriptures an 
ordination that men should walk in the streets 



PLAIN TALK. 119 

stark naked, to teach the rich a lesson that they 
must divest themselves of everything. Kichard 
Hill has justified, with the Bible in hand, adul- 
tery and manslaughter as deeds never failing to 
work out some good purpose, especially when 
joined to incest, in which case more saints are 
added to the earth and more blessed to the 
heavens ! 

Even on the avowal of honest Protestants, 
no crime or abomination has ever failed to find 
its pretended justification in some scriptural 
text interpreted outside the authority of the 
Church. 

What must we think of a principle leading to 
such consequences ? 

XIY. IS IT TRUE THAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
FORBIDS READING THE BlBLE ? 

The Church has received the deposit of the 
holy Scriptures from God, and nothing has she 
more at heart than to see her children nourished 
with the Divine Word, and meditating its oracles. 
Yet she surrounds this excellent reading with 
certain precautions which her maternal prudence 
has learned from faith and experience. 

She well knows how Satan employed the holy 
Scriptures to tempt the Christ in the desert, and 
how the Scribes and Pharisees always opposed 



120 PLAIN TALK. 

Jesus in the name of God's word. She holds 
sacred and inviolable the teachings of her first 
Supreme Pontiff, the Prince of the Apostles, 
who, in reference to the holy Scriptures, warns 
the faithful that in " all the Epistles .... are 
some things hard to be understood, which the 
unlearned and unstable wrest, as also the other 
Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Pet. 
iii. 16.) Hence it is by Holy Writ that the 
Church is directed to give her children this 
divine food with great prudence. But then 
experience also comes to the aid of faith, in a 
matter of so much importance, and, thus, the 
example of all heretics, and, above all, of mod- 
ern heretics, shows most conclusively that this 
reading of the Bible can in some eircumstances, 
and especially in vernacular translations, be- 
come a source of danger. Consequently, she 
has laid down some very simple and wise rules, 
not for the purpose of preventing this salutary 
reading, but to avert danger. 

The first rule is, that we should receive both 
the text and the interpretation of the Scriptures 
from the legitimate pastors of the Church, and 
from them alone; "lest," as St. Peter adds, 
" being led away by the errors of the unwise, 
ye fall from your own steadfastness." (Loc. cit.) 

Then the Church commands that only those 



PLAIN TALK. 121 

translations shall be employed which have been 
carefully examined and approved by the eccle- 
siastical authorities. Thereby the faithful are 
taught that what they read is indeed the word 
of God, and not the human rendering of some 
ignorant or dishonest translator. She wishes, 
moreover, that this same authority be consulted 
as regards the proper dispositions of mind and 
heart which one must possess in order to derive 
profit from this holy reading. 

The simple announcement of these practical 
rules will explain their profound wisdom. They 
are not only wise, but they are necessary. 

The Church thereby shows a far more ten- 
der regard for the holy word of God than 
those rash innovators who, under pretence of 
placing it within reach of every one, have 
trailed it in the mud, and profaned it shame- 
fully. Only the Catholic Church respects the 
Bible, because she comprehends its sanctity 
and proper usage. 

And let us here add, what may be new to 
many, namely : the holy Scriptures are far 
more extensively read among Catholics than 
they are by Protestants. At mass, every 
day, selections from the Old Testament and 
from the Epistles are read together with promi- 
nent portions taken from the Holy Gospels. 



122 PLAIN TALK, 

Many Catholics carry about their persons the 
New Testament or at least the Four Gospels ; 
which practice has become a rule with semi- 
naries. Few indeed are to be found among the 
clergy who do not make the reading and medi- 
tation of the Scriptures a part of their daily 
studies. I cannot say how much the reverend 
pastors of Protestant Churches read the Bible ; 
but I know their flocks do not read it much. 
In many a Protestant family, parents forbid the 
reading thereof, certainly with good reason, as 
there are many passages which it would not be 
prudent to allow a young man or woman to 
read. The Bible is preeminently the Book of 
the Priesthood. Besides the Eucharist, it is 
the most precious deposit entrusted to the 
hands of the priests who have been charged 
with the salvation of souls. By its proper use 
they enrich the souls of the. people as well as 
their own souls. Theirs is the mission to make 
it beloved and respected by everybody, to im- 
part it to all in portions as may be required, 
and thus preserve to the world of God its es- 
sential character — to be Light and Life. 

The respect and love which holy priests and 
true Catholics have for the Bible is unsurpass- 
able. St. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Mi- 
lan, and the great reformer of the Italian clergy 



PLAIN TALK. 123 

in the sixteenth century, always read the 
Bible on his knees, and with uncovered head : 
once four long hours was he absorbed in that 
occupation. St. Philip Neri bathed with his 
tears the pages he knew by heart ; and so also 
did St. Francis de Sales and St. Vincent de 
Paul. M. Olier, the reformer of the clergy in 
France, had a wonderful veneration for the 
book. He had it bound in covers of massive 
silver, and kept it in a special place, aloof from 
any other book ; he never opened it but with 
his surplice on, and always on his knees, in 
spite of his acute infirmities. In these senti- 
ments are French seminarians, for the most un- 
der Sulpitian charge, trained for the sanctuary. 
Jesus is the manna hidden in the Scriptures. 
Happy are those who search for it and find it ! 
Happy the faithful soul who, by the light of the 
Holy Church and of true faith, and in a spirit 
of piety, love, and sanctification, searches the 
adorable Word of God, and from it, as well as 
from the sacrament of the altar, obtains substan- 
tial food of true and solid piety ! 

XV". Why does the Church condemn Bible 
Societies? — A very pious Catholic, who, on 
the meditation of the Scriptures found the 
strongest food to support him in his religious 



124 PLAIN TALK. 

life, asked me once "whether the Bible soci- 
eties did not after all do some good, by spread- 
ing the Book by the million : why ? they came 
to the aid of the Catholic Church ! How could 
then Pope Gregory XVI. condemn them, and 
call them a plague ?" 

Doctor Leo, a German Protestant of elevated 
mind, says : " The Pope has qualified the Bible 
Societies a plague. Were I an Italian and a 
Pope I would do the same. Let us, for once, 
be fair enough to examine the doings of these 
emissaries of Anglican Societies in Catholic 
countries. Acting as they do without common 
decency, and with a shamelessness beyond en- 
durance, — every means is available for the 
purpose of spreading the Bible ; — they thrust 
it into the hands of all, even of those who are 
the least apt to value the gift ; they spread doc- 
trines, which only beget confusion in the minds 
of the people ; wound morality, shake social au- 
thority and ecclesiastic order, and will only 
engender revolutionary movements. Biblical 
Societies have, in our time, been a powerful 
engine in the hands of those who have set Italy 
topsy-turvy. The Protestant zeal of England 
paves the road to English politics and success, 
Bible in hand. Verily, the Bible is the sheep's 
skin under which the wolf hides himself." 



PLAIN TALK. 125 

There you have the question solved by a 
Protestant. The Protestant Bible is only a 
false skin, in which infidelity and revolution 
wrap themselves. 

XVI. " The Bible, the Whole Bible, Noth- 
ing but the Bible." — Such is the incessant 
cry of Protestants, small and big, against Cath- 
olics. The Bible is the whole religion ! Read 
the Bible and you are sure to find faith and 
salvation ! The Bible will rid you of all Ro- 
mish superstitions ! Do you pant after a relig- 
ion easy, free of all superfluous baggage ? Have 
a Bible ! Do you aspire to be one of God's 
elect? Accept of this Bible, my clear sir ! 

False and impossible as the principle is, which 
makes a book, interpreted in many and opposite 
ways, the Rule of Faith, one may be tempted to 
think that Protestants accept it with reverence 
and reflect on its behests. Nothing of the kind ; 
and we have only to open the Bible to see at 
once the glaring contrast between the Sacred 
Text and Protestant doctrines on some of the 
most important questions. 



126 PLAIN TALK, 



PROTESTANT BELIEF AND a . „ n ^ r™~™ 

SACRED TEXT. 
PROTESTANT PRACTICE. 

The ministers say : " The Bi- Jesus Christ says to his Apos- 
ble is the only authority in re- ties : " As the Father hath sent 
ligion. Whatever man teaches, me, I also send you." (Johnxx. 
unless it is the text of the 21.) " All power is given to me 
Bible, is an usurpation and a in heaven and on earth. Going, 
falsehood." therefore, teach ye all nations, 

.... teaching them to observe 

all things whatsoever I have 

commanded you." (Matthew, 

xxviii. 18.) "He that heareth 

you, heareth me ; and he that 

despiseth you, despiseth me." 

(Luke x. 16.) 

The ministers say: "In fact And St. Paul says: "Obey 

of religion, we must believe no your prelates and be subject to 

person' but the Bible, the pure them, for they watch as beings 

word of God." to render an account of your 

souls." (Heb. xiii. 17.) 
The ministers say : " Bishops And St. Paul says to the Bish- 
claim too much; their ministry ops: "The Holy Ghost has 
is an usurped one." placed you Bishops to rule the 

Church of God." (Acts xx. 28.) 

The ministers say : " The Bi- But St. Peter thus speaketh 

ble's meaning can be easily of St. Paul's Letters: "In all 

caught, and the very reading of his Epistles are certain things 

it shelters us from all errors." hard to be understood, which 

the unlearned and the unstable 
wrest, as they do also the other 
Scriptures, to their own de- 
struction." (2 Peter iii. 16.) 

We know that the Saviour wrote nothing. 
He never told his Apostles to write ; he left 
not a word enjoining upon the Christians to 
read what the Apostles might write. Hence 
we see that in the primitive Church they pra3 r ed, 
they fasted, were baptized, received holy com- 
munion, followed all the practices of religion 
most faithfully, and secured the salvation of 



PLAIN TALK. 127 

their souls without reading the Gospel, which 
had not as yet been written. This very little 
remark, which we have already previously 
made, and upon which we lay a particular stress , 
blights, to a very considerable extent, the grand 
Protestant dogma that we must needs read the 
Scriptures in order to know religion and be 
saved. Well, then, what has Jesus Christ 
done to establish and to preserve religion ? He 
has commanded his Apostles to preach : that's 
all. The Apostles thought fit to put in writing 
some of the teaching they had received, and 
some of the most striking traits in the life of 
their Divine Master, — that is the whole of the 
Gospels. The balance of those teachings and 
of those traits they have only delivered by 
word of mouth. They wrote them not on paper : 
they are the Tradition. Hence Tradition has 
in itself as much authority as the Gospel. Let 
us now take up the text, and examine whether 
the saying of ministers is in accordance with 
the saying of the Scriptures : — 

The ministers say: " We'll St. Paul says : " Brethren, .. 
have none of traditions." . . hold the Traditions, which 

you have learned, whether by 

word, or by our Epistle." (2 

Thess. ii. 14.) 

The ministers say: " All that St. John says at the close of 

Jesus has done or said is found his Gospel: "There are also 

in the Gospel." many other things which Jesus 

did, which, if they were written 



128 PLAIN TALK. 



every one, the world itself, I 
think, would not be able to con- 
tain the books that should be 
written." (xxi. 25.) 
The ministers say: "There St. Paul says to the Bishop 
is no more of the Apostles' Timothy: "The things which 
doctrine but what they have thou hast heard of me by many 
written." witnesses, the same commend 

to faithful men, who shall be 

fit to teach others also." (2 

Tim. ii. 2.) And St. John : " I 

had many things to write unto 

thee; but I could not by ink 

and .pen write to thee. But I 

hope speedily to see thee, and 

we will speak mouth to mouth." 

(2. i. 14.) 

The ministers say: "Justifi- St. James says : "What shall 

cation and salvation are to be it profit, my brethren, if a man 

obtained only by faith. Works say he hath faith, but hath not 

are useless and without any works ? Shall faith be able to 

efficacy." save him? . . . So faith also, if 

it have not works, is dead in it- 
self .... Was not Abraham, 
our father, justified by works, 
offering up his son upon the 
altar? .... Do you see that 
by works a man is justified; 
and not by faith only?" (2. 
ii. 14, and seq.) 



In the days of the Keformation, an engraver 
represented the institution of the Eucharist. \_A 
copy of it can be seen in the Library of George- 
town College."] There is our Divine Lord dis- 
tributing the Holy Sacrament to the Apostles, 
and by his sacred lips are uttered these words : 
" This is my body" On the right Luther offers 
the holy communion, and says : " In this is 
contained my body" At the left, Calvin does 
the same, and declares : " This is the figure 
of my body" At the bottom of the picture the 



PLAIN TALK. 129 

engraver wrote in prominent letters, Whom 
shall we believe? There is a great truth, 
expressed with impressive eloquence, in those 
words. 

The ministers say : " The Sa- Our Lord said: "I am the 
viour never meant to give his bread of life . . . the bread that 
own flesh for our food. It is an cometh down from heaven : that 
error forged by the Romish if any man eateth of it, he may 
Church." not die ... If any man eat or 

this bread, he shall live for- 
ever ; and the bread that I will 
give is my flesh, for the life of 
the world. The Jews therefore 
strove among themselves, say- 
ing: How can this man give 
himself to eat? Then Jesus 
said to them: Amen, amen, I 
say unto you ; except you eat the 
flesh of the Son of man, and 
drink his blood, you shall not 
have life in you . . . for my flesh 
is meat indeed, and my blood is 
drink indeed." (John vi. 35, 
et seq.) 
The ministers say: "God Jesus Chrtst says to his 
alone forgives sins. He has messengers : " Receive ye the 
given no power to men to for- Holy Ghost. Whose sins you 
give them.' shall forgive, they are forgiven 

them ; and whose sins you shall 
retain, they are retained." — 
(John xx. 22.) And: "Amen, 
I say to you, whatsoever you 
shall bind upon earth, shall be 
bound also in heaven." (Matt, 
xviii. 18.) 

Nothing easier than to continue this parallel. 
It sets forth the great opposition between the 
teaching of the ministers and that Word of 
God which said ministers vaunt so much to 
follow as the only Rule of Faith. In the face of 
such incontrovertible truths, what becomes of 
9 



130 PLAIN TALK, 

the great Protestant principle, — the Bible, the 
whole Bible? 

No wonder that Protestants, started by such 
incongruities, end by rejecting the Bible alto- 
gether, inasmuch as {hey cannot base their 
belief on it any more. Many parsons look 
upon the Bible as man's work. "We cannot 
deny," says M. Coquerel, " that the holy books 
contain contradictions, and errors in point of 
fact." (Lien, May 6th, 1852.) The Mayor of 
Berlin, addressing the king in behalf of the 
Protestantism of the city, said: "As for the 
majority of Protestants, the Bible and the sym- 
bolic books only bear witness to the labors in 
establishing Christianity ; they are works purely 
human; they contain not what may be called 
an absolute truth." (Memoire sur V Instruction 
publique en Allemagne, par E. Rendu.) To 
finish this picture, Professor Schoerer of Geneva, 
calls the holy Scriptures, a ventriloquism 
cabalistic. (La Critique et la Foi, pp. 20, 22.) 

There ! you have what Protestants have made 
of the Bible. 

XVII. The Catholic Priest, and the Prot- 
estant Ministers. — People, especially in Eu- 
rope, have a very erroneous idea of Protestant 
ministers. They look upon them as a sort of 



PLAIN TALK. 131 

priests, endowed with a special and sacred charac- 
ter, which distinguishes them from all other per- 
sons and gives them authority in matters of 
religion. Hence many offset Protestantism and 
its parsons against the Church and her priests. 
It is a preposterous idea ; yet it is worth its 
while to dwell a little upon it. 

Whffc is a priest ? He is a man consecrated 
exclusively to God, by the sacrament of order, 
which he receives by the imposition of the hands 
of the Bishop, and gives him, in the name of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, a character holy and in- 
delible, the power and charge of teaching re- 
ligion to men, celebrating the holy Sacrifice, 
pardoning sins, and sanctifying the faithful. By 
the sacrament of order, the priest receives a 
participation of the very power of Jesus Christ 
over the souls. He is made priest forever, and 
will remain priest forever, even in spite of him- 
self ; so much so that his power and the sanc- 
tity of his ministry are absolutely independent 
of his personal qualities. * 

Let us turn the other way, and see what a 
Protestant minister is. A difficult question, 
this ; for, like Protestantism, the Protestant 
minister is a veritable Proteus, slipping from 
your grasp when you feel sure of having a 
good hold of him. It is not the same minister in 



132 PLAIN TALK. 

Paris as it is in New York. The definition that 
fits him in London will not suit the latitude of 
Berlin. 

Yet, amidst this prodigious variety of the 
species, the genus remains, and in its general 
outlines it has been thus defined by Count de 
Maistre: "A Protestant minister is a gentle- 
man dressed in black, who, on a Sunday, de- 
livers from a pulpit some fine talk." 

For my part, I would say with more severity 
that " A heretical minister is a man who takes 
upon himself the sinful charge of attacking, in 
the name of the Gospel, the Church of Jesus 
Christ, and of spreading or maintaining error 
in the midst of men." 

I say " they take upon themselves," because 
God has not commissioned them. God has 
sent to men the pastors of his Church, and he 
has promised to be with them, even to the con- 
summation of the world. Such is the divine 
mission, the only true pastoral and evangelical 
mission. The hand of fellowship, nominations 
by consistories, salaries by government, cannot 
confer a religious character, cannot give a di- 
vine mission. Nothing can take the place of 
the Holy Ghost, or of the sacrament of Order. 

I say, moreover, that the heretical minister 
is culpable, indeed ; very much so. For he 



PLAIN TALK. 133 

attacks the work of Jesus Christ, he attacks 
the true faith, and falls under the anathema pro- 
nounced by St. Paul against all men who preach 
doctrines at variance with those of the Church. 
Nill-he-will-he, be he in good faith or bad faith, 
the Protestant minister does a very bad work, 
robbing the Christian of that faith, which is the 
foundation of salvation. 

Protestant pastors may have virtues, but that 
does not alter the question. It is their minis- 
try which is perverse, not their persons. To 
what rare qualities and talents they may pos- 
sess, we will grant our personal esteem, by all 
means. Yet their anti-Catholic work is none 
the less detestably impious, and worthy the 
condemnation of every Christian soul. Super- 
ficial minds get generally puzzled by these two 
things : the form makes them forget the sub- 
stance ; and in the man they ignore the heretic. 

Will you know what, in fact, gives power to 
Protestant ministers? It is not their words, 
nor their doctrines, nor their virtues, but the 
Catholic instinct, deeply true, and surviving in 
the heart of Protestants, unknown to themselves, 
for an authority visible, living, and teaching in 
matters of religion. In this, as in everything 
else, Protestantism subsists only in what it has 
received from Catholicity. It is heart-rending, 



134: PLAIN TALK* 

however, to see poor souls, often true and 
honest, at the mercy of men without fixed re- 
ligious principles, tossed by every wind, and 
very often without even a belief in our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

It would be an insult to the Catholic clergy 
to compare with them the pastors of Protestant 
sects. As Protestantism is no religion, what- 
ever they may say to the contrary, so its minis- 
ters have not the authority of the priesthood, no 
matter how hard they may try to have its 
appearance. 

[I deem it useless to institute here a compari- 
son between our missionaries and those who 
are called Protestant missionaries. It is well 
known (especially since Mr. Marshall's work on 
the Missions has been published) how null and 
futile those pretended missions have been, and 
how its agents have been more interested in 
cotton and opium than in promoting the glory 
of God. Besides their own welfare, those 
agents of Foreign Missions work only to put 
every obstacle in the way of success for our 
martyr-apostles . ] 

XVIII. How the Priest is the Mediator 
between God and Men. — Often have Prot- 
estant ministers, in the footsteps of Rousseau 



PLAIN TALK. 135 

and Voltaire, taunted the Catholic priests for 
stepping between God and man, and inter- 
cepting the communications between the Cre- 
ator and the creature. The reproach would 
have some foundation had the priest assumed 
so much without a mission, as, in fact, min- 
isters do. The priest does not usurp, but 
he fulfils a duty and asserts a right in obedi- 
ence to Him who has sent them forth to preach 
the true religion, to fight error, to sanctify 
and save souls, to reconcile the sinner, to 
dispense among the faithful the mysteries of 
God. 

Again: the priests, the ministers of the 
Church, do not intercept communications be- 
tween Jesus Christ and the Christian souls, no 
more than He intercepted, in his lifetime, 
communications between the Divinity and the 
world. On the contrary, God spoke to men 
through the Humanity of Christ, and taught 
them and blessed them ; and that humanity was 
the means divinely instituted to establish relig- 
ion. That is the bond that unites man to God. 

Now, the mystery of the Church on earth 
being the continuation and extension of the 
mystery of the incarnation, it is no wonder if 
Jesus Christ, having ascended to heaven, and 



136 PLAIN TALK. 

being invisible in his glory, still employs "hu- 
manity " to finish his work. 

He exerts his power through his apostles ; he 
is everything in his priests, who are nothing 
without him. Through the Pope he governs 
and infallibly teaches his Church ; through the 
bishops and priests he is the pastor of souls ; 
and when Protestants charge the Church with an 
usurpation of God's rights, they only exhibit a 
total ignorance of the mystery of salvation. 

XIX. Learning and Controversy of Prot- 
estant Ministers. — At first sight, Protestant 
ministers appear to be very learned men ; but by 
following them close, very little solidity is to be 
found in their learning, which is all Protestant, 
— that is, negative; it is a belligerent knowl- 
edge, not inspired by the hallowing love of truth, 
but by the powerful hatred of. whatever is 
Catholic. 

In dispute and controversy, they bring along 
an interminable array of books, quotations, 
texts, facts, and dates. The audience, dazzled 
by such light ( ?) , feel disposed to think that 
the gentlemen are really prodigies of learn- 
ing. 

Nothing of the kind. There are exceptions, 
indeed, and I know some distinguished men 



PLAIN TALK, 137 

among them, hard students. You will find 
them in Germany, and among the High Church 
men of England ; and some in this country. 
Their studies lead them nearer and nearer to 
Catholic faith. Willing as we earnestly are to 
render homage to men learned and friendly to 
truth, we must say that they are few in number. 
In France, the erudition of ministers is con- 
fined, generally speaking, to a certain number 
of passages from the writings of the Fathers, 
garbled after the minister's own view; some 
facts of doubtful authenticity, apparently in 
opposition with some Catholic dogma, or prac- 
tice ; lastly, a thundering storm of quotations 
from the Bible. 

We cannot be fooled by such people. Hun- 
dreds and thousands of times have those objec- 
tions, the same which Martin Luther offered, 
been refuted, in a most conclusive way, by Bel- 
larmin, and Suarez, and St. Francis de Sales, and 
Fenelon, and Bossuet, etc., etc., etc. For the 
lack of better weapons, they tread on the same 
mill over and over. 

It must be admitted that unless one's studies 
have been extensive, and unless one is endowed 
with an extraordinary memory, a well-instructed 
Catholic, and even a priest, can be very easily 
startled by a telling quotation. The least chance 



138 PLAIN TALK. 

for examination or research would very easily 
afford a reply ; but the discussion allows of no 
respite, and the momentary embarrassment is 
proclaimed a defeat. There is honesty for you. 
From what we have said it can be very easily 
understood why the Church, sure as she is of 
possessing divine truth in her doctrine, and of 
the futility of heretical assertions, commands 
her children to keep clear of controversies with 
Protestant ministers, and forbids us to listen to 
their sermons or to read their books, without a 
special authorization. It is no fear on her 
part ; it is prudence, and prudence begets se- 
curity. 

XX. Why do not Catholic Priests mar- 
ry as Protestant Ministers do? — Once a 
Protestant minister reproached a young student 
for his misconduct ; to which the latter replied : 
" Very easy for you to talk so, sir. Luther has 
declared that it is as impossible to keep from 
marriage, as to go about without clothes, or live 
without nourishment; after this, his opinion, 
you have married. I would marry too, had 
I the means ; but I am only twenty, and the 
government and the evangelical societies give 
me nothing, as yet, wherewith to keep house ; 
so, meanwhile, I do the best I can." 



PLAIN TALK. 139 

It would prove interesting to know what re- 
ply was given by a parson married on the Prot- 
estant principle, that celibacy is against 
nature. 

A Catholic priest would have replied : " Be 
ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ " (1 
Cor. xL 1), Be chaste, as I am, and say not 
that it is impossible, because, what one can do 
another also can. 

Celibacy enables the priest to devote him- 
self wholly to his ministry. On embracing the 
ecclesiastical state they pledge themselves with 
free will, and, after due probation, to observe 
perfect continence. Although this obligation 
is not a divine institution, it is, nevertheless, 
one of marvellous wisdom. The Church well 
knew what she was about, when she changed 
the evangelic and apostolic counsel of celibacy 
into an absolute command for her priests ; * 
and the devil knows very well what he is about 
when he protests against this salutary institu- 
tion. 

Were our priests married, do you think they 
would sacrifice themselves as they do every 

* It is but proper to observe here, that if married men 
were ordained Catholic priests, in the first ages of the Church, 
no ordained priest was allowed to marry after he had been 
elevated to the dignitj of the priesthood. 



140 PLAIN TALK. 

day ? Do you not believe they would hesitate 
before they entered a place of loath and con- 
tagion, and leave directions concerning their 
bank accounts with next kin and neighbor? 
And who are the kin and kith of a married man 
but his wife and children ? 

It is out of question. We can never be rec- 
onciled with the idea of a Catholic priest 
being married. Christian priesthood and the 
wife's teakettle will never harmonize. The 
Protestant parsonship, which after all is only a 
caricature of the priesthood, drags* after itself 
its household like a cumbrous cannon-ball. 
Nothing more laughable than what a certain 
pastor, Mr. Bost, tells of himself in his Me- 
moirs.* The history of his apostolic ex- 
cursions, of his preaching, of his divers voca- 
tions, of his change of convictions, is inter- 
larded with ludicrous histories of matrimonial 
cares, of tin pans, and cooking-stoves. With his 
wife, eleven children, two servants, one piano, 
and two canary-birds, the unfortunate apostle 
parades all around, for fifteen or twenty years, 
thirteen thousand pounds of evangelic baggage. 

* Memoires pouvant servir a Vhistoire du reveil religieux 
des Eglises Protestant.es de la Suisse et de la France, et a V intelli- 
gence des principales questions theologiques et ecclesiastiques de 
nos jours, etc, etc. Par A. Bost, Ministre Protestant. 



PLAIN TALK. 141 

How vividly all this represents primitive 
Christianity, Saint Paul and his staff! 

XXI. How our Saviour and his Apostles 

DIFFER ON THE POINT OF SACERDOTAL CELIBACY 

from Protestant Ministers. — Few questions 
are better defined by the Bible than that of relig- 
ious celibacy. .The church only repeats what 
our Saviour and his great apostle, Saint Paul, 
havo taught on this delicate subject. 

The Pharisees question Jesus about mar- 
riage, and our Lord solemnly proclaims its 
indissolubility. The apostles, alarmed at the 
hard condition of married folks, consult him in 
their turn : " If the case of a man with his wife 
be so, it is not expedient to marry." " But," 
he said to them, " not all take this word, but 
they to whom it is given." Then he adds : 
"There are such who deprive themselves of 
marriage for the kingdom of heaven. He who 
can take it, let him take it." (Matt. xix. 10, 
etc.) 

It seems as if the ministers, although very 
evangelical, are not of those to. whom it is given 
to take the word; whereof our priests, papists 
though they be, ignorant as they are said to be 
of the genuine word of God, take it. They 



142 PLAIN TALK. 

understand the counsel of the Master, and have 
heart enough to follow it. 

The doctrine of virginity and celibacy is none 
the less beautifully defined by St. Paul, in his 
first epistle to the Corinthians, seventh chap- 
ter. The principles are so distinctly set down 
that Mme. de G-asparin, in her anti-Catholic 
zeal, declares, with charming ingenuity, that it 
is evident that such passages of the epistle as 
refer to celibacy are not inspired. "Inspiration 
returns," says she, " when St. Paul passes to 
other subjects." 

Well, the apostle says : " Now concerning 
virgins I have the commandment of the Lord; 
but I give counsel, as having obtained mercy of 
the Lord, to be faithful" Just what the Catho- 
lic Church teaches ; she forces no person to a 
life of celibacy. True, she makes a law of this 
counsel, a strict law for her ministers, but she 
forces no one to embrace the priesthood ; and 
when a Christian expresses his intention to be- 
come priest, he acts on his perfectly free will, 
and it is only on his spontaneous determination 
that he accepts the condition of a perfect chas- 
tity. 

The motives of this conduct of the Church 
will be also found in St.Paul. After showing that 
matrimony is good and honorable, he adds : "J 



PLAIN TALK. 143 

would have you wifliout solicitude. He who is un- 
married, eareth for the things of the Lord, how 
he may please God. But he who is married is 
solicitous about the things of the world, how he 
may please his wife, and he is divided. And the 
unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh of the 
things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body 
and spirit. But she that is married, thinketh of 
the things of the world, how she may please her 
husband" And the apostle concludes thus : 
" Therefore both he that giveth his virgin in mar- 
riage, doth well; and he who giveth her not, 
doth better." Bene facit; melius facit. 

There is the argument summed up. Mar- 
riage is good, celibacy is better. What have 
the ministers to say to this ? It is not I that 
speaketh, but the Bible. Let us be candid. 
They care naught for the Bible, but they detest the 
priests, the only true ministers of the Gospel. 
They wish them to marry, that they may be un- 
priested. They are chagrined, because they 
cannot deprive them of that angelic celibacy, 
which crowns them with a holy halo, and justly 
secures to them the confidence and the venera- 
tion of the people. 

Cunning Philistines, they would like to rob 
Samson of his strength, through their Delilahs ! 
But, warned by the examule of the first Sam- 



144 PLAIN TALK. 

son, the latter will not give in. They reject 
Delilah, and fight against the enemies of God's 
people the unconquerable battles of faith. 

XXII. About the Jesuits. — Calvin looked 
upon the members of the Company of Jesus as 
his most deadly enemies, and said that it was 
necessary to get rid of them. In his usual 
impudent style he wrote : " They must be de- 
stroyed, and if it cannot be done quietly, 
they must be chased away, or crushed under 
the weight of falsehoods and calumnies." Jes- 
uitce vero qui se maxime nobis opponunt, aut 
necandi, aut, si lioc commode fieri non potest, 
ejiciendi, aut certe mendaoiis et calumniis oppri- 
mendi sunt. 

The children of Calvin, and, in later times, 
the followers of Voltaire, have most piously and 
most faithfully taken up the cry, and have been 
so industrious, and have lied so skilfully, have 
so terribly slandered the Jesuits, that they have 
succeeded in making a number of people believe 
that those holy priests are only impostors, hyp- 
ocrites, villains, conspirators, traitors, obscu- 
rantists, assassins, perverse and dangerous men. 

Is it necessary to assert that the Jesuits are 
nothing of the kind ? They are grave and ad- 
mirable religious people, burning with zeal, in- 



PLAIN TALK. 145 

defatigable in the service of the Church and of 
souls, always ready to help a good work. They 
are in the Church a chosen troop. Protestants 
and infidels know it well. Hence they de- 
test them, and have been heaping on them 
every kind of calumny for the last three hun- 
dred years, with a will, and with all their 
power. 

I have at command a mass of eulogies be- 
stowed on the Jesuits by Protestants whose 
partiality in their favor cannot be suspected. 
But I will only quote the spirited as well as 
most conclusive testimony of Henry IV. To 
the Parliament and to the University of Paris, 
who had charged the Jesuit Fathers with all the 
crimes, for which they have been constantly and 
perseveringly traduced ever since, he replied : — 

" I thank you for the care which you take in 
behalf of my person and of my State. You say, 
the Sorbonne has condemned the Jesuits ; but 
it was done, as in your case, before it had known 
them ; and if the old Sorbonne did not act from 
jealousy, the new one has improved on the old, 
and boasts of it. 

" You say that the most learned among the 
members of your Parliament have learned noth- 
ing of them ; if the most learned are the oldest 
* among you, it is true, for they have made their 
10 



146 PLAIN TALK. 

studies before the Jesuits were known in 
France. If the best studies are made among 
you, how does it happen, that, in consequence 
of their absence, your university is become de- 
serted, and that students flock, in spite of 
your orders, to Douay, to Pont-a-Mousson, and 
to places out of the kingdom ? 

" Again you say, that they draw the youth of 
fine disposition and make choice of the best : for 
this I think the more of them. Do we not 
choose the best of soldiers to fight our battles? 

"You say, they come in the best way they 
can. So does everybody ; and have I not en- 
tered my kingdom the best way I could ? At 
the same time we must acknowledge that they 
are possessed of an admirable patience, and I, 
for one, admire it, for with patience and good 
life they achieve everything. 

" You say, that they are great sticklers for 
their institute ; that is just what will preserve 
them. Thus I would change none of their 
rules, and thus I wish them to keep them. 

" As for the ecclesiastics, who find fault with 
thfem, it is the old story of ignorance assailing 
learning, and I know very well that when I spoke 
of re-establishing them, two kinds of people 
particularly opposed me ; those who belong 
to the so-called reformed religion and ecclesias- , 



PLAIN TALK. 147 

tics of dubious morals. Just what made me 
think more of them." 

The Jesuits have always been persecuted and 
will always be. Their founder has besought for 
them, on his death-bed, the crown promised by 
the Lord in his sermon of the mountain, touch- 
ing the eighth beatitude, — " Blessed are those 
who suffer persecution for justice' sake ; for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are 
ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute 
you, and speak all that is evil against you, un- 
truly for my sake. Be glad and rejoice, for 
your reward is great in heaven." — (Matt. v. 10, 
etc.) 

There you have the history of the Company of 
Jesus written in advance of its existence. The 
special hatred with which heretics and infidels 
have persecuted its members is their best 
eulogy. 

XXIII. Mixed Marriages. — When one 
party is Catholic and the other is not, the mar- 
riage is called mixed. 

The Church grieves at such marriages. They 
exhibit great indifference in matter of religion, 
and often entail the non-Catholic training of 
the offspring. For my part, I cannot under- 
stand how a Christian, a Catholic, can be So for- 



148 PLAIN TALK. 

getful of objects divine, as to choose for a com- 
panion in life a heretical woman, to be the 
mother of his children, the directress of his 
domestic life. 

The Church leaves no means untried to make 
us feel how repugnant these marriages are to 
her. She refuses them the enhancing majesty 
of her wedding ritual, and positively forbids 
her ministers to take any other part in them 
but that of a witness. Hence such marriages 
are contracted outside the Church, in the vestry, 
— no blessing, no prayer, no holy water, no 
surplice, no stole. Moreover, the betrothed, on 
both sides, must bind themselves, beforehand, 
and under a solemn oath, to raise in the Catho- 
lic Church all the children that may issue from 
their marriage, both boys and girls. Unless 
this oath is taken, the Church will not permit a 
mixed marriage to be contracted. 

When you then meet the child of a mixed 
marriage raised in Protestantism, know that the 
parents have perjured themselves. 

And were even all conditions requisite for 
such deplorable unions fulfilled, and the matri- 
monial bond signed before a priest, let it be 
known that the Catholic party is forbidden to 
go before a Protestant parson. It would be a 
participation with heretics in sacred things, and 



PLAIN TALK. 149 

a culpable allowance in favor of heresy. Once 
married in the Catholic Church, what do you 
need at the meeting-house ? not the matrimo- 
nial bond, for you are already joined in it. If 
you only go for the purpose of hearing some 
fine passages of the Bible relating to matrimony 
it is not worth the scandal you give, and you 
can as well read them at home. 

Protestants, you know, do not consider matri- 
mony a sacrament, and if the reverend gentle- 
men still insist upon "couples" coming before 
them, it is for the sake of a fee. 

Mixed marriages are a token of weakened 
faith. No Christian will ever stoop to such a 
religious incongruity, unless he is lost to all 
sentiments of Catholic dignity. 

Matrimony is a great sacrament ; from it gen- 
erally depends the happiness and salvation of 
husband and wife. Woe to them who do not 
contract it according to God's laws, and let 
family arrangements, wealth, and sentimental- 
ity trample on their faith i 



150 PLAIN TALK. 



PAET THIED. 



1. What prevents honest Protestants 
from becoming Catholics ? — The ignorance of 
the teachings of the Church, an almost uncon- 
querable prejudice against the Church, the 
stronger because imbibed at their mothers' 
breast, confirmed by education, and never com- 
bated. With the best faith in the world, they 
look upon the Church as a school of superan- 
nuated superstitions ; * her holy authority a 
tyranny, an usurpation ; her priests cunning 
fellows who cheat the people ; her children so 
many dolts who believe whatever they are. told 
to believe. 

Bossuet, after having battled with the ablest 

* "Lifeless ceremonial and senseless mummery; super- 
stitions of the Romish Church; dictatorship of the hierarchy; 
unscriptural creeds; gross doctrines; irrational mysteries, 
etc.," are some of the qualifications attributed to the Catholic 
Church by Mr. J. T. Bixby, " Christian Examiner," Boston, 
July, 1867, pp. 77, 78. 



PLAIN TALK. 151 

ministers of his time, came to the conclusion 
that ignorance was the greatest obstacle in the 
way of conversion from Protestantism. After 
such an experience he published his Exposition 
of the Catholic Doctrine, which took all minis- 
ters by surprise. Astonished to find dogmas, 
qualified, by them, as ridiculous and supersti- 
tious, so simple, so evident, so great, they 
charged Bossuet with having disguised the 
truth to serve his cause. Whereupon he sub- 
mitted his work to the Pope, and to almost all 
the Bishops of France, and published a second 
edition with an authentic approbation of the 
Holy See, and of about fifty Bishops. It 
brought back to the Church the great Turenne, 
the Marquis de Dangeau, grandson of that 
Duplessis-Mornay who was called the Pope of 
Huguenots, together with a train of distin- 
guished men. 

The ignorance of Protestants in regard to 
Catholic doctrine is beyond all belief. Do they 
not assert that we worship the Blessed Virgin, 
look upon her as a goddess, attribute to her a 
divine power? Do not many among them 
charge us with adoring the Pope, selling the 
Body and Blood of Christ, setting a tariff on 
confession, and affirm such absurdities which 



152 PLAIN TALK. 

tbey should be ashamed to impute to men of 
sense and education ? 

The Catechism is the most available book to 
place in the hands of Protestants, — the book 
we put in the hands of children. 

2. About the idolatrous Adorations, 
with which Protestants reproach Catho- 
lics. — " Catholics allow creatures the adora- 
tions they owe to the Creator," — an oft-repeated 
charge made in pamphlets and books by the 
parsons, and re-echoed from their pulpits. We 
may repeat it over and again, that the Catholics 
adore only God; no use, — they Jcnow we are 
idolators, duly convinced, no more nor less 
than the Hottentots and the Cochin-Chinese. 

Yet let us protest once more: We adore 
God, God alone, — we adore our Lord Jesus 
Christ, because he is God, — we adore neither 
the Virgin Mary nor the saints, — we honor and 
venerate them, we give them what is due to the 
mother and friends of our Lord and King. We 
beseech them to pray for us, because their 
prayers are more worthy and more acceptable 
to God than ours. What can be more simple ? 
It must needs be an evil-minded spirit that will 
find in it an occasion for launching anathema 
against the Church. 



PLAIN TALK. 153 

The malignant slander that we adore the 
Pope is too ridiculous to deserve an answer. 

They force themselves into seeing an adora- 
tion in every genuflection of ours. They 
exhibit no great proof of good sense in that. 
We go on our knees, because the humble and 
devout posture of the body has an influence 
over the soul, and disposes it to a prayer more 
recollected, and to a religion more profound. 
Who ignores the great influence of the body 
over the soul ? 

It is, moreover, very natural, that a heart 
penetrated with reverence, humility, and re- 
pentance, should bring the body to bend low, 
and thus agree in the worship of the spirit. 

It is thus that we love to kneel, not only 
before our Lord Jesus Christ, to adore and 
beseech him, but even at the feet of his Blessed 
Mother, whom we respect so much, before the 
honored relics of martyrs and saints, and before 
the sacred image of the cross. In his law God 
does not forbid to venerate holy things ; but he 
forbids to worship them. No Catholic will 
ever be found who adores a picture of Mary, a 
crucifix, or a relic, thereby confounding God 
with them?* 

* Protestants forever din our ears quoting Moses: " Thou 
shalt not make to thyself a graven thing" — but scarcely 



154 PLAIN TALK. 

Let us then go on our knees, with an humble 
love, before the hallowed objects of the true 
worship of the true God ; and as well at the 
feet of the Vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ, at 
the feet of Bishops and of God's priests, that 
we may receive their holy blessing ; which is 
not the benediction of man, but of Jesus who 
dwells in them, and who, through them, blesses, 
enlightens, and sanctifies the world. 

III. A Word about Protestant Pamphlets 
and Tracts. — With two kinds of tracts do 
Biblical Societies overflow the land. 

First, and the more numerous, contain in- 
sipid tales, of a clammy and languid religiosity, 
wherein we are invariably treated with conver- 
sions performed at the mere sight of the Bible, 
women dying a most holy death, without con- 
fession, sacraments, or priest ; an everlasting 
sanctimonious parson, very tolerant, with a 
honeyed and Biblical tongue ; or a dame, very 
religious, all zeal for the Gospel, running from 
hut to hut, comforting the poor with a chapter 
of the Bible. In these tracts the Catholic 

ever add the words "to adore them." We adore them no more 
than the Israelites adored the two golden cherubs which 
Moses had placed, by the order of God himself, on either side 
of the Ark of the Covenant. 



PLAIN TALK. 155 

Church is not openly attacked. Oh, no ! The 
danger is only negative.' It lies in that the 
ideas of the readers are puzzled by having pre- 
sented to their admiration and imitation exam- 
ples of a religion altogether opposed to genu- 
ine Christianity. The very silence about the 
Catholic Church is an attack laid in perfidious- 
ness. This preordinated silence, vaunted as a 
part of moderation, is inimical ; and it has a 
purpose, — it leads people to ignore the Church, 
and let it slide. Happily, these -stories are 
badly written, and mortally sickening; for 
which God should be thanked. 

Tracts belonging to the second class are dis- 
tributed with more judgment, and boldly attack 
the Holy Church. They are, for the most, 
violent disquisitions on what religion holds 
most venerable and holy ; shameless calumnies 
against the clergy, blasphemies against the 
Mother of God, and falsehoods so revolting 
that they cannot be attributed to mere igno- 
rance. As we read in a solemn warning by the 
Bishop of Strasbourg, they bear, at times, a 
Catholic title, and, to cover the snare, are 
adorned with pictures of Our Lady. 

PrQtestants look upon the spreading of these 
tracts as a meritorious work, carried on with 
great unanimity by divided sects. They as- 



156 PLAIN TALK. 

sume increased proportions every year. The 
old carrier, who formerly went about carrying 
his bundle, is transformed and multiplied. The 
fair sex becomes every day more and more inter- 
ested in the enterprise. Rail-road cars are 
thronged with evangelists in petticoats. Cram- 
ming their pockets, their work-baskets, their 
bandboxes, with tracts written by their re- 
spective parsons, these women start for the 
crusade, determined to destroy the empire of 
superstition. They offer their little papers, 
distribute them, cast them abroad, intrude them 
upon you, or drop them. They slide them 
through Venetian blinds, thrust them under 
doors, and pin them on rails, or on trees, on 
the highways. 

Nor is this a newfangled apostolate. Luther 
was not ashamed to follow it. He added the 
sting of caricature to the defamatory libel which 
he would write in the heat of his imagination, 
and with a system led by a genius not less ma- 
licious than brutal. Melancthon, the angelic, 
his favorite disciple, was his chief assistant in 
this cowardly business. Libels were they, and 
caricatures, prompted by such noble motives, 
and written in a revolting and sickening style. 
Although certain slippery points, upon Which 
Luther could, so naturally, balance himself 



PLAIN TALK. 157 

well, are somewhat roughened in modern tracts, 
yet we prefer to believe that those devout 
travellers, anxious as they are to thrust them 
upon the people, do not read them beforehand. 

IV. How certain Protestant Pamphlet- 
eers SHOULD LEARN THE ART OF VERIFYING 

Dates. — Among those pamphlets which 
covertly attack Catholicity, some pretend to 
be able to silence the Catholic Church for- 
ever, by convicting it of innovation, and quote 
the precise, absolutely verified date of the in- 
vention of each Catholic dogma. 

This practice would not be, after all, so very 
disastrous to them, were they only able to 
agree with each other ; whereas, they contra- 
dict each other, and baffle each other's schemes. 
As they quote dates at hap-hazard, only a miracle 
could help them to meet on one and the same 
point. Let us take up two chronologies, one 
published in England, by Bulington and Bulton 
Horncastle, with the title, Dates of the new 
Doctrines added to the Cliurch of Rome, the 
other published in Angers, a. d. 1846, by the 
facetious Rev. Mr, Puaux, under the title, 
Extracts of Origins* 



158 PLAIN TALK. 

Now see how these two historians of good 
faith agree together : — 

The English Historian, The Eev. Parson Puaux, 

Invocation of Saints in- Worship of Saints in- 
vented in 700 vented in 375 
Supremacy of the Pope, 1215 Primacy of the Pope, 600 
Apocrifical Books, 1547 Apocrifical Books, 1564 
Seven Sacraments, 1547 Seven Sacraments, 1160 

And so on. Indeed, " Iniquity hath lied ta 
itself." (Ps. xxvi. 12.) 

Outside the Puaux chronology, there are 
other dates established with uniformity enough 
to fix the origin of the pretended additions 
made to our dogmas and religious practices. 

Thus, as regards confession, which has been 
their constant bugbear, they fix the institution 
thereof in the year of grace 1215, and the dogma 
of the Immaculate Conception in the year 1854. 
They throw those dates into our faces with an 
air of triumph, and exclaim, " That's the way 
your dogmas are manipulated." 

There is nothing so mean, and at the same 
time so impudent, as half-learning. Protest- 
ants well-instructed are very chary in making 
such foolish assertions ; for they know, as 
well as we, that, in 1215, Pope Innocent III., in 
the Lateran Council, only established certain 
rules in reference to the annual approach to the 



PLAIN TALK. 159 

sacrament of penance, — a sacrament instituted 
by our Divine Saviour, and practised since the 
beginning of the Church ; and they know that, 
in 1854, the Supreme Pontiff % Pius IX. did not 
invent the belief that Mary was free from the 
stain of original sin ; but he only proclaimed 
and made obligatory for all to believe the an- 
cient doctrine of the Church. The dogma of 
the Immaculate Conception existed before the 
proclamation, even as it now exists. In fact, 
the feast thereof was celebrated in all Christen- 
dom, from time immemorial, with only this dif- 
ference, that it had not been officially defined, 
and one might be deceived on the point of this 
doctrine without becoming heretic, as, in fact, 
many were deceived, who otherwise were great 
men, and even saints, and nourished the most 
ardent and the deepest love for our blessed 
Lady. 

"We might as well say that the Council of 
Nicace invented the dogma of the Trinity, and 
that of the Divinity of the Word, when, in 325, 
it defined these two great truths against the 
Arians. Before the Nicean Council, the Church 
believed both the Trinity and the Incarnation, 
the same as she believed the sacrament of con- 
fession before the Council of Lateran, and the 



160 PLAIN TALK. 

Immaculate Conception of the mother of our 
Lord before the eighth of December, 1854. 

The Catholic dogma is the truth religious. 
But truth is not made, it exists eternal and im- 
mutable. The Church is the depository thereof, 
and, guided by her divine chief, our Lord, she 
proclaims her teachings according as innova- 
tors dare to deny them, or whenever she thinks 
proper to do so for the good of her chijdren. 

V. Protestant Toleration. — Among the 
many prejudices which sway the world, an$ 
reign even among demi-Catholics, one is, 
16 although the Reformation may have been 
the cause of evil, may have caused man's 
blood to flow, and may have demoralized whole 
nations, it has, at least, done this much good : 
it has given religious toleration." 

Nothing farther from truth, or less sustained 
by history. Wherever Protestantism has a 
sway, it is intolerate and persecuting. Of 
course not everywhere, in the same degree ; 
but why not ? Because it does not possess every- 
where the same degree of power. To persecute, 
one must have both will and power. Fortunately 
Protestantism cannot always act as it has a mind 
to. But let it be said boldly, in fact, of intol- 



PLAIN TALK. 161 

erance, Protestantism will always go as far as it 
will dare. 

The Reformation has always introduced itself 
by violence, and its first fruits, in Germany, 
Geneva, England, and Sweden, have been civil 
war, proscription, and murder. How else ? The 
Reformation is a revolution, and whatever is 
revolutionary, is, of its own nature, tyrannical. 

Once established, Protestantism has held its 
own by the same dint of violence. Everybody 
knows in what relation English Protestantism 
stands to the Catholics, — how bloody the laws, 
and with what ferocious despotism it crushes, 
this very day, faithful and unhappy Ireland. 

William Cobbett, a Protestant writer, in the 
face of such facts could not give the lie to his 
conscience, and he thus testifies against the 
national Church: "A Church," he writes, 
"the most intolerant that ever existed, ram- 
pant before the world, with knife, and axe, and 
the instruments of cruel torture ; its first steps 
marked with the blood of numberless victims, 
whilst its arm gave way under the burden of its 
robberies." Then he quotes the acts of Parlia- 
ment, by which it is proven that in conse- 
quence of this wholesale butchery of Catholics, 
the population of England was diminished one- 
tenth its number. Death was proclaimed 
11 



162 PLAIN TALK. 

against any priest who should dare to enter 
the kingdom, or who should be convinced of 
having celebrated mass. Death for him who 
gave shelter to a priest. Death to every one 
who refused to acknowledge Queen Elizabeth 
at the Head of the Church of Jesus Christ. A 
heavy fine imposed on all who refused to assist 
at the Protestant service, and " the list of all 
those who were put to death, for the only crime 
of being Catholics, during the reign of Eliza- 
beth, would be by far more numerous than the 
roll of our armies and of our navy," adds the 
same historian. 

" Nor is the English Church changed ; it has 
proven true to itself from the very first begin- 
ning of its existence ; its cruelties in Ireland 
would degrade, in atrocity, those of Mohammed 
himself, and a whole volume should be required 
to chronicle all its acts of intolerance." (Let- 
tre to Tenderden, Lord Justice, who, in Parlia- 
ment, had boasted of the tolerance of the British 
government.) 

By the same means did Calvinism introduce 
itself into France. For more than one century 
we hear nothing in that country but rebellions, 
and riots, and devastation, wherever the Hugue- 
not doctrine gained admittance. That period 
is only a tissue of disorders, treachery, and 



PLAIN TALK. 163 

cruelty. Nor is there cause for wonder, when 
Calvin publicly proclaimed that kings and 
princes must be broken, when they refuse the 
profession of Protestantism; better to spit in 
their faces than to obey them. Under the guid- 
ance of Coligny, the Calvinistic revolutionists 
planned the project of abducting the King of 
France, yet an infant. Having failed, they took 
possession of Orleans, laid waste the borders 
of the Loire, Normandy, and the Island of 
France. Languedoc fared the worst of all, as it 
became the theatre of cruelties and profanations 
unparalleled in history. At Montauban, Cas- 
tres, Beziers, Nimes, and Montpellier, those 
vaunted pioneers of tolerance, and liberty of 
conscience forbade, under terrible penalties, 
all practice of Catholic worship. The world 
has heard of that notorious Baron des Adrets, a 
Calvinian leader, who, after the surrender of 
Montbrison, indulged in the innocent pleasure 
of hurling from the highest tower the surviving 
defenders of the post. Thus did generally fare 
all cities that fell in Calvinistic hands : churches 
desecrated, sacred vessels stolen, priests and 
monks driven away or killed, most barbarous 
atrocities committed and sacrileges most abom- 
inable. These are historical facts ; they chal- 
lenge contradiction, and are not denied even by 



104 PLAIN TALK. 

Protestants, who, however, from time to time 
allow themselves to be caught wishing the re- 
turn of the good old Protestantism of France. 

It makes one's hair stand on end to read the 
atrocities whereof the Hollanders became 
guilty when striving to extend Protestantism 
over the Netherlands ; above all, the tortures 
and torments with which Lamark and Sonoi, 
agents of the Prince of Orange, gave vent to 
their religious zeal. We have a faithful pic- 
ture of Sonoi drawn by a Protestant pen: 
" The ordinary processes of cruel torture were 
only the lowest degree of punishment inflicted 
on the innocent. Their limbs were disjointed ; 
the flesh, hanging in shreds, after a pitiless 
scourging, was swathed in rags dipped in 
alcohol, then set on fire, until, the flesh burnt 
and the nerves crisped, the bones were bared to 
view. Sometimes so much as half a pound of 
sulphur was employed in burning the armpits 
and the soles of their feet. Thus marred, 
they were abandoned on the fields for days and 
nights without any relief, only that repeated 
blows drove sleep away from their eyes. No 
food given but herrings, or such as would create 
a burning thirst, whilst no kind of drink, no, 
not even water, was allowed. Hornets were 
inserted to sting their navels. Sonoi went so 



PLAIN TALK. 165 

far as to cause rabid rats to be placed on the 
breasts and bellies of those martyrs, enclosed in 
a box made for the purpose, and covered with 
combustibles. Fire being applied, these ver- 
min became furious, and would cleave a way 
for themselves, tearing the bowels and the 
hearts of the victims. The wounds were seared 
with burning coals, or molten lard was poured 
into them. . . . He had invented even more hor- 
rible torments, and he inflicted them in cold 
blood ; cannibals would be disgraced by his 
cruelty; decency forbids us to say more." 
(Abrege de VHist. de la Hollande. Kerroux, 
t. IL, p. 310.)* 

* The following episode, in the history of persecutions is much 
apropos of what is written in the text. It relates the passion 
of the Martyrs of Gorcum, who were elevated to the honor 
of the altars on the occasion of the late Centenary Festival in 
Rome, June, 1857. It has been translated from the Dutch by 
the Rev. Joseph De Vries of Bowling Green, Ky., and published 
in the " New York Freeman's Journal," from whose columns we 
beg leave to transfer an abridgment to our pages : — 

" WiUiam van Lumey, a nobleman of Liege, Duke of Mark, 
and Stadtholder of Holland, was, for his insatiable cruelty to- 
wards the Roman Catholics, deservedly called ■ The Hangman 
of the Inquisition of North Holland.' 

"In the commencement of 1572 he was compelled, in conse- 
quence of some piratical exploits, which he endeavored to 
justify as blows against the Spanish power, to withdraw his 
vessels for safety to England. 

" He was not, however, allowed to enjoy long this place of 



166 PLAIN TALK. 

Protestant tolerance of England, France, and 
Netherlands, finds its counterpart in Sweden. 

refuge, as he received positive orders from Queen Elizabeth to 
leave her kingdom with the fleet, which he commanded as 
Admiral of the Prince of Orange. Not knowing in what direc- 
tion he should sail, he was advised by William Blois, of Tres- 
long, who had recently joined him with two vessels, and by 
Jacob Simonson de Ryk, and other captains of the fleet, to at- 
tempt a feat more worthy of their cause. They proposed to 
sail for Enkhuizen or some other city of North Holland. Lu- 
mey was reluctantly forced to yield to their wishes. He set 
sail in March, in the direction of Texel, with the purpose of 
attacking the Spanish fleet. Head winds, however, frustrated 
his design, and he was compelled to run up the river Meuse, 
with the hope of securing to himself the city of Brielle. As a 
precaution he sent forward two vessels, under the command of 
Marinus Brandt and Damian van Haren, which he soon 
followed with his whole fleet of twenty-four sail. Arrived 
before the city, he demanded its surrender ' in the name of 
the Prince of Orange, as Stadtholder of the King of Spain/ 

" The town was without garrison, and the authorities, unable 
to offer resistance, made no reply. Treslong, impatient of 
delay, forced the south, — whilst Lumey ordered Captain 
Boobol to burst open the north gate. Both entered the city on 
the same evening at the head of two hundred and fifty men. 

" This daring feat, which we may regard as the groundwork of 
the independence of Holland, was consummated by Lumey, in 
a manner worthy of him, since early on the following morning 
he issued his order to rob and desecrate all the churches and 
monasteries of the city. It was not without great difficulty 
that Captains Treslong, Entes, de Ryk and Dirk Duivel pre- 
vented Lumey's design of first plundering the whole town and 
then abandoning it. Thus it was that a roving band of ad- 
venturers, who had assumed the contemptible name of Water 
Creux, made the first successful resistance to the Spanish 



PLAIN TALK. 167 

There, also, the Reformation was introduced by 
violence and bloodshed ; the religious laws of 

tyranny, although they most probably did not suspect the 
great results of this daring attempt. 

" From this point Lumey's savage soldiers issued forth into 
the surrounding country. 

" On the 25th of June, 1572, at about 8, A. m., which was the 
day following the surrender of Dordrecht, Marinus Brandt 
appeared before Gorcum and demanded the surrender of the 
city. The citizens, many of whom were tainted with the new 
heresies, being much divided, the city went over on the 26th. 
But the commander, Gaspar Turk, unable to resist the excited 
populace, withdrew to the Castle, offering to all that would 
follow him a secure asylum until his son, William Turk, should 
arrive with the necessary reinforcements. He also encouraged 
those of the Catholics who had followed him with a letter of 
.the Spanish commander-in-chief, Duke Bossu, who promised 
him assistance. 

"Amongst his followers were Father Nicholas Pieck, Guardian 
of the Franciscan Monastery of Gorcum, and sixteen of his 
brethren, who had carried with them the sacred vestments and 
Church ornaments. Three others refused to accompany them, 
and remained in the monastery. Leonardus Van Vegehel and 
Nicholas Poppel, two of the city pastors, returned to the town 
to warn the people and to urge the Catholics to take refuge 
within the castle. 

" Brandt, having entered the city at the head of his Geux, 
commanded the citizens to assemble on the market-place, where 
he made them take the oath of allegiance, which pledged them 
to be faithful to the king and the Royal Commander of the 
Netherlands, — William of Nassau, Prince of Orange; to re- 
sist the Duke of Alba, and to defend the new evangelical 
doctrine. He next ordered them to shout, l Long live the 
Geux," to which Turk from his castle played an accompani- 



168 PLAIN TALK. 

that country have preserved as much of their 
cruel enactments as the spirit of the times will 

ment, by the discharge of two cannons among, the Geux. 
Brandt, perceiving that the commander was in earnest, sent to 
him a letter by one of the Franciscans who had remained in 
the city, which Turk would not receive. The messenger, how- 
ever, read the letter, — which promised the commander and all 
his followers leave to retire, free and unmolested. He refused. 
Brandt prepared immediately to storm the fort, and commenced 
operations that very evening. Turk bravely defended the 
post with which he was entrusted, although he had but twenty 
soldiers at his disposal. The Geux soon gained the outworks. 
He then retreated to that part of the castle which was called 
the Blue Tower. The first loss, however, had so discouraged 
his little band, that now they threw away their arms and re- 
fused to obey. At this juncture, Brandt demanded anew the 
surrender of the fort, promising, on his oath, that all, lay and 
clerical, might go without hindrance, only they were required 
to leave behind them whatever treasure they had concealed 
within the castle. Turk hesitated until midnight, when, see- 
ing no signs of relief, he surrendered to the Geux on the 27th 
June. "When the clergy learned the news, knowing that they 
would certainly be recognized from their dress, they made their 
confession, and received the Holy Communion at the hands of 
Father Nicholas. 

" Upon entering the fort, Brandt gave his hand to Hesselius 
Estius, who was standing at the entrance, saying : 'Fear not; 
what I have promised I promise again, and pledge by my 
oath/ Scarcely, however, had the savage horde entered, when 
the prisoners — and above all the ecclesiastics — experienced 
the roughest treatment. The Geux forthwith assailed them, 
and searched their pockets and clothes for money. The vice- 
guardian, a venerable old man whom they took to be the 
guardian, had to suffer much. They grabbed him by the 



PLAIN TALK. 169 

allow. Not long ago (in 1861) six whole fam- 
ilies were banished the country, their goods 

breast, and abused him violently to force him to give np the 
money, which the holy man, faithful to the rule of his 
order, did not have. 

" After the list of the prisoners was made out, Brandt re- 
proached Gaspar Turk with the death of two citizens, whom he 
had beheaded for lodging and patronizing heretical preachers. 
Turk replied that he had done what his office obliged him to do. 

" But from this moment the Geux began in earnest their in- 
sults and outrages upon the ecclesiastics, who bore it with ad- 
mirable patience. A citizen of Gorcum offered to ransom 
the guardian, who was his relative; but the noble Nicholas 
Pieck refused positively to abandon his brethren, to whom he 
ever addressed words of encouragement and confidence. A 
similar offer was made to the steward of the monastery; he, 
however, did not hesitate a moment to accept it; he even re- 
mained in the castle as the steward of the Geux. 

" Being bitterly upbraided with the violation of his word and 
his oath, Brandt defended himself by saying that he could do 
nothing further without the orders of Lumey. Yet a few days 
afterwards the prisoners, with the exception of the ecclesias- 
tics, were ransomed by the concerted action of some citizens. 
One Catholic alone was excepted with the clerical body; but 
he also, at the continued instances of his wife, was allowed to 
go, and with him a certain priest named Godefridus Van 
Buyneu, who was somewhat feeble-minded. But when he was 
leaving the prison, one of the Geux soldiers remarked, ' If 
this fellow has sense enough to serve God, he must have sense 
enough to be hanged.' Whereupon he was returned to the 
prison, and afterwards actually martyred with the others. 

" After the citizens were dismissed, the guardian was thrown, 
with all his companions, into a subterranean dungeon, in 
which both pastors of the city, with one other priest, had been 



170 PLAIN TALK. 

confiscated, only because they had entered the 
Catholic Church. In Norway, Denmark, Prus- 

already confined. They were greatly wearied with the ill- 
treatment and insult which they had received, and they felt 
also keenly the cravings of hunger. As it was Friday, a day 
of abstinence, they were served with meat ; but they refused 
to partake of it, notwithstanding the intensity of their appe- 
tite. One only, a priest, forgot himself, and ate of the prof- 
fered food. 

" Some time after, the soldiers, by means of a ladder, came 
pouring into the prison of the frightened clergy, crying aloud, 
'Let us cut off the ears and noses of these idolators and 
crucify them.' They were about to take off every stitch of 
their clothes to tie them on the ladder for the purpose of 
scourging them, when one of the soldiers came in with the 
tidings that William Turk was approaching with a band of 
Spanish troops. They hastened to the wall to resist the com- 
ing forces ; but, failing to see them, they soon left the fortifica- 
tions to return to the prisoners, who now expected nothing else 
but to be put to death, one after another. Leonardus there- 
fore walked resolutely up to them and knelt down, saying, ' I 
am ready/ at the same time uncovering his head and neck. 
They required him to discover to them the treasures of the 
monastery. He remained silent. They next fell upon Gode- 
fridus ; but finding that they could effect nothing with this 
feeble-minded individual, they turned to Nicholas Goppel, the 
younger pastor, and put a cocked pistol to his mouth to com- 
pel him to point out the hidden treasures. These threats did 
not in the least disconcert him. They then seized the cincture 
of a Franciscan brother, threw it around Poppel's neck, and 
dragged him to the door, where they pulled him up and 
down till he was almost strangled. When he was all but dead, 
they renewed their demand. Obtaining no information — for 
how could they, since he knew nothing about it? — they 



PLAIN TALK. 171 

sia, and Geneva, wherever it reigns, Protestant- 
ism had ever proved itself the sworn enemy and 

kicked him aside, thinking that he was dead. At the time of 
his death the marks of the cord were still plainly visible. 

" Now they went again at the Franciscans, inflicting all sorts 
of tortures upon them, especially the younger ones, whose 
teeth were knocked out. One of the brothers receiving the 
same abuse, said, 'I know nothing about the hidden treas- 
ures; that is the guardian's concern.' 'Who then/ they 
asked, ' is the head of the traitors ? * and with this they 
seized on Hieronimus, the vicar, whom they conjectured to be 
the guardian. They put a dagger to his breast and renewed 
their threats. With one word the vicar could have warded off 
all danger from himself; but he remained silent and awaited 
death patiently. Afterwards they discovered the guardian 
and assailed him furiously. His calm reply was : ' The conse- 
crated chalices and the ornaments were taken into the castle, 
as you well know; and I am sure that you will not fail to find 
them ! ' They heeded not his word, but drew his cincture also 
up to his neck, dragged him to the door, and repeated on him 
the torture which they had inflicted on Poppel. The constant 
friction of the cord, as it passed over the sharp edges of the 
door, caused it to break, and the holy martyr fell apparently 
lifeless on the stone floor of the dungeon. 

" The savages approached him to ascertain whether he was 
dead, and placed him in a sitting position against the wall. 
Not discovering any evidence of life, they held a burning can- 
dle to his forehead, burned his hair, blackened his face, 
mouth, cheeks, chin, and nose. Then they held the flame to 
his nostrils to make it penetrate to the brain. Their cruelty 
being not yet satiated, they forced open his mouth and held the 
burning candle in it, which so burned his tongue and palate as 
to deprive him of all taste until the end of his martyrdom. 

"Not finding any tokens of life in him after these barba- 



172 PLAIN TALK. 

blind hater of Catholics. Free and unchecked, 
it spurns all outward regards, which have often 

rous tortures, they kicked him aside, saying, ' It was but a 
monk.' When he came to himself he uttered not a word of 
complaint in regard to his indescribable sufferings; he only 
exhorted his brethren to persevere through all their trials. 

" The torturers soon returned, armed with a hatchet to hew 
him to pieces ; perceiving, however, that he was still alive, 
they trampled on his body and breast, exclaiming, ( Does that 
monk live yet ? ' Once more they repeated their insults, kicked 
him and trampled upon him, and then left the dungeon amidst 
the most horrible imprecations. 

" On the following morning the Geux soldiers returned to the 
prison of the ecclesiastics, and one of them dealt out such heavy 
blows upon their jaws that the blood streamed out copiously 
through nose and mouth. Such scenes were often repeated, 
mostly during the night. Sometimes they were accompanied 
by invited guests, among others a Walon, whom one of the 
Franciscans recognized as his countryman, and endeavored to 
move to pity and commiseration; but, for a reply the latter 
took a knife and cut his face, so that streams of blood poured 
from it, adding, ' I will hang you because you are my country- 
man! ' 

" The soldiers, too, knelt down before those ecclesiastics, who 
were priests, as if they wished to confess, and whispered all 
kinds of vulgar language into their ears, which they followed 
up with blows and kicks. Willehadus, a superannuated monk, 
replied to every blow by saying, ' Thanks be to God ! ' and 
when one of the Geux inquired l What he had to say to his 
confession/ the pious old man said, ' I will pray to God for 
you.' The Geux struck him for this so violently that he fell 
fainting to the ground. 

"On the 3d of June, the third day of Jheir captivity, Theo- 
dore Bommer and Arnold de Koning, both citizens of Gorcum, 



PLAIN TALK. 173 

given it an appearance of moderation ; openly 
and haughtily it claims what it wills. 

were hanged; the first because he had called the Geux, as 
they passed by him, church robbers ; the other for having, in 
the surrounding country, enlisted soldiers in the name of the 
king. Brandt had permitted Father Leonardus to assist them 
in their last moments : at the solicitation of the citizens, he 
was even allowed to remain in the town on condition that he 
would be ' liberal ' in his preaching. He succeeded, also, 
with the aid of the nephew of the guardian, in obtaining for 
him a physician to tend his wounds. When the doctor beheld 
the barbarous cruelty which he had endured, he could not re- 
strain his tears, and he resolved to visit them daily. 

" On the 1st of July, there appeared in the prison a certain 
John Omalius, a renegade canon of the Church of Liege, who 
was at present in the service of Lumey. He informed them, 
amidst the most frightful invectives, that he was deputed by 
the Duke of Mark to hang all of them. The vicar promptly 
replied, ' Do with us as you please, — we ask for no delay ; ' 
which was answered by Omalius with another volley of 
abuse. 

" On the same day they were visited by a hangman, who 
showed them the ropes, saying, 'Look what I hare got here! ' 
' Thanks be to God/ quoth the guardian, l that we have got 
so far/ He proceeded to tear the cowls from their habits, 
which he took with him, but the hanging was not yet carried 
into effect. 

" Again during the night, a lot of drunken soldiers rushed in 
upon the martyrs. After tying them two by two, they put 
them in a row, yelling, 'Sing now, ye monks, you shall 
march to death in procession. , They readily went out to the 
walls of the fort, chanting the Te Deum. Here they found a 
number of Geux soldiers seated at a well-supplied table, who 
handed them a dice-box, telling them that they might throw 



174 PLAIN TALK. 

At the Protestant Synod of Breme, Parson San- 
der, of Ebberfeld, alluding to the Jesuits and to 

to see who should be hanged first. ' The throwing of the dice 
is altogether superfluous/ exclaimed Nicholas Pieck; 'I offer 
myself as the first victim. ' 

U After a few more insults and indignities, they were this 
time led back to the dungeon without any new torture. 

" On the following day, the feast of the Visitation of the B. V., 
Father Leonardus ascended the pulpit of the parochial church. 
Those who had flocked thither to hear him carry out his prom- 
ise of preaching 'liberal ' sermons, were sadly disappointed; 
for he boldly preached the pure and unadulterated doctrine, in 
opposition to all heretical innovations. After this they ex- 
erted their utmost to imprison him anew, and made frequent 
attempts upon his life ; the Catholics, however, protected him 
faithfully. His efforts to effect the ransom of his colleague, 
Nicholas Poppel, proved abortive, and he himself was finally 
banished from the city for his bold preaching. When he was 
leaving the town, the soldiers held on to him, and when a. few 
citizens made an attempt to release him, the Geux shouted that 
he was a traitor, who was leaving the city without a pass. 
This was false, for he had obtained' a written pass, which these 
very soldiers had secretly abstracted. Not having anything 
to show, he was proclaimed a traitor and led back to prison. 
Marinus Brandt ordered him instantly to be undressed and to 
be put to the torture, which order, for some unknown reason, 
he recalled before it could be enforced. He was, however, 
cast into the dungeon under the pretence of being suspected of 
treasonable intentions. When he entered, he asked pardon of 
his former companions in so far as his conduct might have ag- 
gravated their condition. The physician, Theodore, was in 
the mean time the only one who was faithful to them in their 
misfortunes, carefully treating their wounds and frequently ex- 
horting the guardian to consent to the ransom that was offered 



PLAIN TALK. 175 

the Pope, exclaims, " Where Protestants have 
the power, they should not be allowed to exist, 

much less to be free.' 

• 

for him, but he presistently refused, saying, ' That the shep- 
herd should not forsake his sheep.' 

" Some influential advisers had been active in exerting them- 
selves for the liberation of the captives, and now despatched 
for this end a message to the Prince of Orange. The Geux, 
learning this, urged the cruel Lumey, who still remained in 
Brielle, to have them executed before the reply of the Prince 
could arrive. 

" Lumey had sometime before sent the Lieutenant Omalius 
to look after the prisoners, and thence to proceed to Bommel, 
before which city he met with a complete defeat. The news 
of this disaster embittered Lumey yet more against the cap- 
tives, and, arrogating to exercise absolute power in the absence 
of the prince, he ordered their execution. Omalius returned 
on the 3d of July, from his defeat before Bommel. A few 
zealous Catholics resolved to try to purchase the freedom of the 
poor monks from the brute, but they were falsely advised not 
to make the attempt, since he was, they said, not to be pre- 
vailed upon, — not even with gold. 

" Not judging it prudent to carry out the execution publicly 
in Gorcum, he had them taken to the river Merwede on the 
night of the 6th of .Tuly, after robbing them of a portion of 
their clothing. Those who asked to be allowed to retain their 
cloaks received in reply heavy blows upon their jaws. At 1, 
A. m., they were ordered to step into a small boat, which was 
to take them to Brielle. The master of the craft was a citizen 
of Gorcum. Leonardus recognized him and said: — 

" ' Well, Rochus, so you are the man who must take us to the 
gallows ? ' 

" ' Yes/ he replied, ' I have to do it.' 

" The boat contained nineteen prisoners, — sixteen priests, 



176 PLAIN TALK. 

At Geneva, jealous of Catholic growth, the 
Protestants have formed a covenant, not to 
buy anything of Catholics, never to employ 

and three lay brothers of the Franciscan Monastery. Their 
number had been reduced occasionally, but circumstances 
had, from time to time, filled up the vacancies. 

" After descending the river some distance, they were trans- 
ferred to an oyster craft, in which they were closely huddled 
together, and the repulsive exhalations of which well-nigh 
stifled them. Nicasius fortunately had some spirits, which the 
physician had given to him while yet in prison. This he dis- 
tributed among his brethren, which had the effect of somewhat 
reviving them. Their stay, however, in this disgusting craft, 
was but of short duration, as they were soon taken aboard a 
merchantman, which took them to Dordrecht, where they ar- 
rived on the following morning at 9 o'clock. Here they were 
relieved of some more of their clothing. 

" While they were anchored near the wall, curiosity drew 
multitudes from the city to see them, and looked at them as 
if they were a collection of wild beasts. They were, more- 
over, left without food the entire day. The insulting crowd 
kept increasing to such an extent that they were glad to be 
allowed to get aboard the vessel upon paying a fee to the 
soldiers who guarded the prisoners. About noon the tide rose, 
and Omalius gave orders to sail for Brielle. The Captain 
managed to give them something to eat, adding, ' I do not 
know a human being who will not give me a piece of bread in 
return for this act of kindness.' 

" The vessel anchored within three miles of its destination. 
Throughout the entire night they were left a prey to hunger 
and cold until, finally, at daybreak, they reached Brielle. 
They were delayed a whole hour before the gate, till Lumey 
himself arrived, surrounded by an armed retinue, to give 
orders for its opening. The barbarian eyed them for a long 



PLAIN TALK. 177 

them, to reduce them to want, to see that Prot- 
estants alone are raised to offices and places. 

time with a grinning smile. ' What do you come here for ? 
Have you come hither to ply your treachery and upset our 
plans? You had better remain at home to read your masses! ' 
Such was his greeting. He then commanded his soldiers to 
lead them forth from the vessel, and to compel them to kneel 
down before him, whilst he addressed them the Latin words, 
J Surgite, Domini ! ' — ( Gentlemen, arise ! ' Being tied two and 
two, they put a blazed standard, which they had stolen from 
one of the churches, into the hands of the lay brother Henry, 
and made him march on before his companions. Three time3 
they had to pass in this manner under the gallows ' in order,' 
as the soldiers expressed themselves, ' to fulfil the vow of their 
pilgrimage.' The populace, in the mean time, assailed them 
with a torrent of ridicule and insult, pointing to them the 
gallows as they yelled, ' Look, there is your church and your 
graveyard.' They were ordered now to kneel down under the 
gallows and to chant the Litanies of the Saints and of the 
Blessed Virgin, while the hangman seemed to prepare himself 
for his work; for these preparations were only made to 
frighten them. The hangman finally snatched the standard 
from the hands of Henry, and placed himself at the head of 
the procession. Soldiers and people drove them on with 
clubs, Lumey himself striking them in the face with the limb 
of a tree. They were marched to the market-place, where, in 
the same manner as outside the gate, they were placed under 
the gallows. Here they were commanded to recite aloud the 
Litanies of the Saints and of the Blessed Virgin, which were 
answered by the crowd with mockery and ridicule. At the 
close of these insults they were removed to prison, where two 
other priests were already incarcerated, — Andrew Wouters, 
pastor of Heinoort, and Adrian, pastor of Maasdam. Thirty 
minutes later two other monks were added. After occupying 
12 



178 PLAIN TALK. 

And all this by men who, in terms of indig- 
nation, demand liberty and equality of worship, 

this damp subterranean dungeon until three in the evening, 
they were led to the court-house, where Lumey, assisted by a 
few chosen persons, proposed to them some questions concern- 
ing their faith, which were all thoroughly answered by Leo- 
nardus. They were remanded to their dungeon; only the 
pastor of Maasdam, the canon of Gorcum, and the lay 
brother Henry were put in a better prison and served with 
bread and water, probably because they had answered their in- 
terrogators more satisfactorily. 

" On the following day, 7th of July, seven of them were ex- 
amined anew and solicited to abjure their faith. The leader 
of these so-called judges was a seaman called Cornelius, who, 
finding that he could nob unsettle their belief, vociferated in- 
cessantly, ' Let them be hanged ! ' They were returned again 
to prison. In the mean time the Catholics of Gorcum had re- 
ceived, from the Prince of Orange, a letter of protection for the 
prisoners. It was addressed to Marinus Brandt, who gave a 
copy of it to a prominent and zealous Catholic. On the follow- 
ing day the City Council of Gorcum sent a messenger to Lumey, 
with a copy of the order for the release of the prisoners. But 
Lumey protested that he ' considered himself as much at the 
head of the Republic as the prince, and that he did not expect 
to receive orders from anybody, — he cared not whom. As re- 
garded the prisoners, upon these he would revenge the death of 
Dukes Egmond and Hoorne, and many others; this was de- 
creed and determined irrevocably.' Much as Treslong and 
some other captains pleaded in their favor and insisted on their 
liberation, Lumey and his party prevailed. 

" The order of the Prince of Orange had deeply wounded the 
pride of this infamous officer, and only served to fire his fury 
against him and the ecclesiastics. He had promised, too, the 
feast of their execution to the people of Brielle, and he would 



PLAIN TALK. 17? 

even where they are a small minority ; by 
men who perpetually boast of liberty of con- 
not deprive them of this pleasure. Neither prayers nor gold 
could avail, and the messenger returned to Gorcum without 
effecting anything, to the great astonishment of all those 
who were interested in them. 

"The guardian, Nicholas Pieck, was again, on the following 
day, cijbed before a tribunal which offered to set him free with 
all his companions, if only they would forswear the Pope of 
Rome. This proposition was purposely made to him, because 
they thought that his example would easily induce the others 
to follow. But he refused most emphatically. A supper was 
now offered them, probably to weaken thereby their minds, but 
all agreed with the guardian, who told the judges ' that he 
would never abandon his brethren and companions in life or in 
death ; nor would he do anything to weaken their faith in any 
point ; that all had resolved rather to meet death than to deny 
one tenet of their religion.' 

" Lumey, learning their determination, passed immediately 
upon them the sentence of death. At 11, p. m., the martyrs 
were roused from their sleep, and notified that the hour of their 
execution had struck. ' What the Lord has given/ replied 
Father Nicholas, ' I cannot refuse.' 

" The prisoners were again tied as before, and led outside 
the gate amidst a great concourse of people, who heaped upon 
them all possible mockery and insult. Here they were again 
joined by the lay brother, Henry, who had been separated 
from them on a previous occasion, for having probably denied 
some doctrine of the faith. He manifested the most profound 
grief, and ardently wished to share their martyrdom. His 
companions welcomed him back, which again increased their 
number to twenty-one. The martyrs were conducted to a place 
where an Augustinian monastery used to stand, dedicated to 
St. Elizabeth. The monks had deserted it before it was de- 



180 PLAIN TALK. 

science, Christian charity, and of a religion of 
peace and love ; by men who profess to believe 

molished by the Geux. A large barn, which had been used to 
stowaway turf, was still standing. It had two cross-beams, 
which were considered very suitable for the hanging of the 
martyrs. As soon as they were brought in, they confessed, and 
recommended their souls to God. The guardian was selected 
as the first victim. He embraced his brethren, and admonished 
and begged them to persevere courageously until death in this 
struggle for their faith. He then ascended the ladder lightly 
and without hesitation, continuing his exhortations till the 
rope closed around his neck. When the voice of the venerable 
guardian was hushed, the noble Hieronimus and Nicholas 
Poppel took up the word, and encouraged their brethren to 
persevere until the end; for a Calvinist preacher exerted his 
utmost, especially with the younger ones, to induce them to 
renounce their faith, by promising them life and distinguished 
consideration for their apostasy. His words, however, pro- 
duced no effect except on the youngest novice, Henry, who did 
all that was asked of him to preserve his life. His youth may 
be alleged as some excuse, since he was only eighteen years of 
age, and the fear of death crushed out of him all other senti- 
ments. 

" The vicar Hieronimus behaved with great courage. While 
ascending the ladder, he said to the preacher, who pretended to 
speak to him words of comfort: ' It is no hardship for me to die; 
but it is painful to witness that an inexperienced youth has heeded 
your words.' This reply made the soldiers furious; they attacked 
anew the old defenceless clergyman, and drew their knives 
through his face, so that it became horribly disfigured. Their 
barbarity carried them so far that, after he had been sus- 
pended, they cut out from the flesh the cross, which, agreeable 
to a regulation of his order, he wore on his breast and right arm. 
He was succeeded by Nicasius and the pastor Nicholas. Before 



PLAIN TALK. 181 

in Jesus Christ, and with whom one is perfectly 
free to be an infidel, a Pantheist, an Atheist, but 
not a Catholic ! 

VI. Catholic Intolerance. — We know 
now what to think of the vaunted tolerance of 
Protestants. Let us examine on what ground 

their death, they addressed a few words in Latin to their re- 
maining companions, which, however, were not understood by 
the novice, Henry, who was not, as yet, sufficiently conversant 
with that language, and to whom we owe in great part the 
particulars of this history. 

" A Franciscan, whose name was William, spoke a few words 
to the Walon soldiers, who surrounded him and whose country- 
man he was. They cut the ropes with which he was bound, 
and removed him. He had renounced the faith and forfeited 
the crown of martyrdom. 

" Godefridus van Mervel, the sacristan, whose office it was 
to keep the consecrated vessels, retained the secret of their 
hiding-place till the end, and when climbing the ladder re- 
peated the words of our Saviour, ' Lord, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do.' Leonardus, being led to death, ex- 
horted his brethren, and said, ' I regret not that I am going to 
die a death which is truly desirable, but I leave behind me a 
mother and a sister, for whom nature prompts me to feel, for I 
know that the news of my death will greatly afflict them.' 

"It was next the turn of Godefridus van Duyneu, who, as 
has been stated before, was somewhat feeble-minded. Stepping 
upon the ladder, he said to his executioners, c Hurry on, I pray 
you, that I may join my brethren. If I have any way offended 
any of you, I beg you, for the love of God, to forgive me.' Then 
he was hanged, and he breathed his last. 

" We add the names of the above martyrs, — eleven of whom 



182 PLAIN TALK. 

the hackneyed charge of intolerance is made 
against the Catholics. This charge contains 
both a truth and a falsehood. 

The Church is certainly intolerant in matters 
of doctrine. True ; and we glory in it ! Truth 
is of itself intolerant. In religion, as in mathe- 
matics, what is true, is true, and what is false is 
false. No compromise between truth and error ; 
truth cannot compromise. Such concessions, 
however small, would prove an immediate de- 
struction of truth. Two and two make four : it 

were Franciscans; the other eight belonged also to religious 
communities." 

NICHOLAS PIECE, 

HIERONIMUS VAN WEERT, 

THEODORUS VAN EMBDEM, 

NICASIUS JANSSEN VAN HEEZE, 

WILLEHADUS DANUS, 

GODEFRIDUS VAN MERVEL, 

ANTONIUS VAN WEERT, 

ANTONIUS VAN HORNAAR, 

FRANCISCUS ROY, 

PETRUS VAN ASSCHE, 

CORNELIUS VAN WYK, 

LEONARDUS VAN VEGCHEL, 

NICHOLAS POPPEL, 

GODEFRIDUS VAN DUYNEU, 

JOANNES VOSTERWYK, 

JOANNES (Priest of the Order of Preachers), 

ADRIAN VAN BEEK, 

JACOBUS LACOPS, 

ANDREAS WOUTERS. 



PLAIN TALK. 183 

is a truth. Hence whoever asserts the contrary, 
utters a falsehood. Let it be an error of a thou- 
sandth or of a millionth part, it will ever be 
false to assert that two and two do not make 
four. 

The Church proclaims and maintains truths 
as certain as the mathematical ones. She 
teaches and defends truths with as much intol- 
erance as the science of mathematics defends 
hers. And what more logical ? The Catholic 
Church alone, in the midst of so many different 
sects, avers a possession of absolute truth, out 
of which there cannot be true Christianity ; she 
alone has a right to be, she alone must be, in- 
tolerant. She alone will and must say, as she 
has said through all ages, in her councils: 
" If any one saith or believeth contrary to what I 
teach, which is truth, let him be anathema ! " 

At the same time, our Lord, intrusting her 
with the deposit of truth, has also left in her 
his spirit of charity and patience. Intolerant 
as regards the doctrine, the Church has mercy 
for the people, and never has she had recourse 
to lawful measures of rigor, but after all man- 
ner of kindness and persuasion have failed. 

She has visited only the incorrigible, and 
then as a last resort. She was constrained to 
do so, to preserve from contagion the souls of 



184 PLAIN TALK. 

the faithful, to put an end to scandals, and to 
fulfil those great duties of a justice — not less 
divine than mercy is. 

In her patience and in her tolerance to- 
wards persons as well as in her intolerance for 
what concerns doctrine, the Catholic Church 
faithfully follows in the footsteps of her Chief 
and her God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is 
truth, mercy, and justice. 

As for those anti-Catholic historians who 
write so much about the pretended barbarism 
of the Church in the middle ages, their misrep- 
resentations are even more discredited by the 
conscientious labors of a new generation of his- 
torians far more impartial than their prede- 
cessors. "To live, Protestantism found it- 
self forced to build up a history of its own," 
said the celebrated historian Thierry, — certainly 
not suspected of any partiality towards the 
Church. 

There are Protestants now, who, divesting 
themselves of all party spirit, protest against 
those old slanders, criminal exaggerations, and 
perfidious insinuations, with which old histories, 
are crammed. u For the last three centuries," 
says cle Maistre, " history has been a permanent 
conspiracy against truth." 



PLAIN TALK. 185 

VII. The Inquisition, St. Bartholomew, 

AND THE DrAGONNADES OF THE CeVENNES. A 

few words more about Catholic intolerance, 
Protestants never tire of casting up against 
the Catholics certain facts, which they allege 
as proofs to convince them of intolerance, — 
the Inquisition, St. Bartholomew, and the Dra- 
gonnades of the Cevennes. 

These items have furnished materials for ro- 
mances and plays ; but writers of novelettes 
and plays do not profess regard for histori- 
cal accuracy, and people of common sense and 
seekers of truth do not generally look to them 
for information. 

1. What is, then, this Inquisition, which 
frightens us so much, even in these, our days? 
Popular romances represent it as a terrible 
tribunal, raised in every Catholic land, tortur- 
ing poor victims in deep dungeons, and burning 
them at the stake, with surrounding fires never 
put out. 

The Protestant historians, Ranke and Guizot, 
honorably admit that the Spanish Inquisition 
was only a political institution to protect the 
unity of Spain. The rulers of that kingdom 
looked upon heresy as the enemy most danger- 
ous to the peace of their dominions, and de- 
clared it a crime of high treason against the 



186 PLAIN TALK. 

nation. Unable to decide by themselves, or 
their civil courts, questions of faith, they es- 
tablished an ecclesiastic tribunal, charged with 
the examination of prisoners and with judg- 
ment on their orthodoxy. The inquisitors then 
acquainted the prince with the result of their 
examination, and the latter pronounced sen- 
tence as he deemed best. 

That institution you may value as you choose ; 
you are at liberty to condemn the abuses and 
the cruelties of which it has been guilty through 
the violence of political passions and the char- 
acter of the Spaniard ; yet one cannot but 
acknowledge, in the terrible part taken b} T the 
clergy in its trials, the most legitimate and 
most natural exercise of ecclesiastical author- 
ity. Does not the examination of questions 
of faith belong by right divine to the Church? 
but what man of good faith will ever confuse 
these acts, exclusively religious, with the office 
of the executioner ? 

But remember that the Popes have never 
ceased to protest against the rigors of the 
Spanish Inquisition, although it received no 
prestige whatever from their authority, it being, 
as we have seen, a political institution of the 
Spanish kingdom. 

2. But you will say, " What of the Saint . 



PLAIN TALK. 187 

Bartholomew ? — that frightful massacre ordered 
by the Church, to the sacrifice of so many 
Protestant lives ? " 

The Saint Bartholomew, even more than the 
Inquisition of Spain, is a political event.* 
Protestants rebelled against lawful authority ; 
they had attempted to seize the person of the 
king, and endeavored to establish in the midst 
of the nation a people turbulent and revolu- 
tionary. The youthful Charles IX. and the 
haughty Catharine Medici, his mother, were 
threatened in their lives and liberty by the con- 
spiracy of Amboise ; they had to fly for their 
lives before that of Meaux. The leaders of the 
Protestant party grew more insolent every day. 
The queen, thus goaded, resolved to get rid of 
the rebels, and called to her assistance the re- 
ligious excitement fanned into frenzy by the 

* In the " North British Review," June, 1863, we read : 
u One word as to the massacre. The difficulties experienced even 
in these days in arriving at the truth should suggest that some 
allowance should be made for the attitude taken up by the 
Pope. Te Deum, medals, and frescoes, in celebration of a 
massacre, are not in themselves things well fitted to soften 
Protestant prejudices. But we must bear in mind that upon 
this, as upon other momentary occasions, the See of Rome 
was imperatively called upon for immediate action, before the 
true facts of the case could by any possibility have been really 
known, if, indeed, they were not designedly concealed." 



188 PLAIN" TALK. 

fury of the Huguenots. Religion was the pre- 
text, but not the cause of the Saint Bartholomew. 
Men well read in history know it to be so in 
these our days ; why, then, do not Protestant 
historians acknowledge it in good faith ? 

"Very well," you urge; u but did not the 
Pope sing a Te Deum on the occasion of that 
butchery?" Yes, he did; but Gregory XIII. 
had been deceived as to the facts. He received 
a hurried despatch from the French court that a 
murderous attempt had been made on the lives 
of the king and of his family, and that they had 
been delivered from the hands of the Huguenots, 
and the assassins had been punished ; where- 
upon the Pope went to St. Peter's and returned 
public thanks to God. He ignored the lament- 
able truth of that night. Those excesses 
have, however, been greatly exaggerated by 
the party ; for after all the Protestant mar- 
tjTology could not set down the number of vic- 
tims, all counted, but at seven hundred and 
eighty-six, for all France. Because those men, 
in rebellion against their sovereign, had been 
shot down as turbulent Calvinists, js it a rea- 
son why the Catholic Church should be held 
accountable for their death ? The whole blame 
of the Saint Bartholomew is therefore laid, and 



PLAIN TALK. 189 

solely, on the machiavellian conduct of Charles 
IX. and of his mother. 

Without any purpose of excusing that which 
cannot be excused, we must observe that men 
and institutions always bear the stamp of the 
times. In those ages, public manners were 
rude and uncouth, and their character affected 
men and things, good and evil. Moreover the 
religious sentiment had a mastery over all the 
rest. Accordingly Protestant violence came 
into collision with an excitability of faith where- 
of we have no idea. To it we must refer, 
for the most, the extreme measures which ac- 
companied many historical facts of those days. . 

3. Although this asperity of manners was 
somewhat softened in France in the days of 
Louis XIV., it yet was the cause of lamentable 
results at the time of the revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes. I shall not canvass here the nature 
of that act of Louis. But truth compels us to 
remember that, during the cruelties practised 
against the Huguenots in certain parts of the 
Cevennes, the king's officers went beyond the 
orders of their master, and alone were guilty. 
Irritated at the attempt made by the Protes- 
tants to sunder the unity of the nation, to plot 
with strangers, to hold continued practice with 
England, Louis XIV. resolved upon purging 



190 PLAIN TALK. 

France of this leaven of discord. To assert 
the rights of the crown, as well as those of 
religion, he called force to his assistance. But 
it is well known how Bossuet and Fenelon, 
however of one mind with the king, deprecated 
those cruel and violent measures. What, then, 
in the presence of these simple facts, becomes 
of the charges preferred by the enemies of the 
faith? And how can the dragonnades of the 
Cevennes be turned into an argument against 
the Church? 

Here we have three facts, three political 
crimes, if you will, for which Protestants make 
the Church responsible after three hundred 
years. Oh ! but St. Francis de Sales spoke well 
when, at the utterance of so many slanders 
against the Church by the Protestants of his 
own time, he compared her to the chaste Susan- 
na, falsely accused by those men who should 
have been her defenders ! That sainted woman, 
brought to the pillory, exclaimed : — 

" O Eternal God, who knowest hidden 
things ! . . . Thou knowest that they have borne 
false witness against me ; whereas, I have done 
none of these things which these men have ma- 
liciously forged against me." 

"And the Lord raised the spirit of young 
Daniel, and he cried out with a loud voice : — 



PLAIN TALK. 191 

" ' Are ye so foolish, ye children of Israel, 
that, without examination or knowledge of the 
truth, ye have condemned a daughter of Israel ? ' 

" And the people rose and did justice to the 
innocence and sanctity of the chaste Susanna." 
(Dan. xiii.) 

VIII. Protestant Martyrs. — Protestant- 
ism has no Martyrs. — A martyr gives his life 
in steadfast testimony of the faith of Jesus 
Christ. He dies, not for the sake of personal 
opinion, but for the doctrine of the Church of 
God. He is not obstinate but faithful. Hence 
every Christian put to death out of hatred to 
the faith is a martyr. 

Are these few Protestants, who have suffered 
martyrdom for their religious opinions, martyrs ? 
Not at all. They have staked their lives to 
uphold private ideas and convictions purely 
human ; preferring their own defiance to their 
lives. It is a death crowning man's pride ; 
whereas, a veritable martyrdom is the most 
perfect act of humble submission and total self- 
abnegation. It is not enough to be killed in 
order to be a martyr. It must needs be a death 
suffered for the sake of a truth which one's 
honor will maintain even at the cost of life. 

In the pretended martyrs of reformed 



192 PLAIN TALK. 

sects we find fanaticism, defiance, self-glory, 
and madness, — all offspring of pride. On the 
other hand, the true martyrs — those whom Holy 
Church offers to Jesus Christ, from St. Stephen 
down to those recently killed for the faith in 
China and Ava — all die in the peace of God ; 
meek and humble, like innocent victims, ex- 
pressing love for their executioners, — martyrs 
worthy of Jesus both in life and death. 

IX. An Instance of Protestant Moder- 
ation. — We often hear Protestants complain- 
ing of the violent style of Catholic writers. It is 
a clerical ruse of great and keen cunning ; 
because, on the other hand, they vaunt great 
moderation and tenderness in their attitude 
towards the Church. 

Now, we have something to say about it : — 

1. What they are pleased to call violence in 
Catholic writers is only an ardent zeal for the 
truth, — that zeal which devoured our Saviour, 
Jesus Christ, when he whipped the buyers and 
sellers out of the temple, and made Pharisees 
and scribes writhe under his scathing anath- 
emas. 

2. Catholics attack Protestantism, but only 
on the defensive, against Protestants. Protest- 
antism is a rebellion, essentially unwarrantable, 



PLAIN TALK. 193 

against truth and the Church, and the children 
of the Church and of truth never take up arms 
against Protestantism but to ward off its attacks 
and save their faith. 

3. Lastly, this Protestant moderation is of a 
kind both with their style of controversy and 
their tolerance. It does not exist, and we 
defiantly hurl back the charge they advance 
against us. 

We shall now give a proof of a general 
character, — a well-known proof, — upheld alike 
by the Protestant and the socialistic press. 

The journals of the principal sects of France 
— Le Lien, L'Esperance, Les Archives — have 
with great zeal announced and encouraged a 
book as one of the very best, and one which is 
to be found in all the Protestant publishing 
houses of Paris. It is an old work by the 
Lutheran, Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde re- 
cently re-ushered before the public, with a pref- 
ace by Mr. Quinet. 

No Protestant organ protests against its re- 
publication. Nay ; all hail its appearance. 

The preface says : "Our work is not only 

to refute Popery, but to root it out; not to root 

it out only, but to brand it with infamy; not 

only to brand it with infamy, but to stifle it 

13 



194 PLAIN TALK. 

under the mire." — (p. 7.) " Catholicity must 
be done away with." 

" Whoever undertakes to root out that sickly 
and mischievous superstition (Catholicity), pro- 
vided he feels able to do it, should, first of all, 
remove such superstition out of sight of the 
people, and render its practice absolutely and 
physically impossible. At the same time no 
hope should be held for its reappearance." 
(p. 81.) 

"This religious despotism (the Catholic 
Church) cannot be rooted out unless we get rid 
of all legality. . . . Blind as it is, it dooms 
itself to be the victim of blind force." (p. 37.) 

"No; no truce with The Unjust." (p. 42.) 

" The principle that all religions are equal is 
at variance with all philosophy, all science, and 
all history. . . . There exists a religion which 
glories in its being incompatible with modern 
liberties. Had the French Revolution seen this 
difference plainly, it might, by a concentration 
of its powers, enmities, and decisions have 
exterminated a worship which denies existence 
to modern civilization. But . . that revolution 
was wanting in audacity, . . . and the (Cath- 
olic) worship, which it was its mission to break, 
came out of its hands stronger, healthier, and 



PLAIN TALK. 195 

bolder than ever. Let us not be guilty of the 
same again." — (pp. 57 and fol.) 

It is a plain talk. We know where we should 
find ourselves were Protestantism to triumph 
over the Christian Church ! In the face of such 
open violence, thus openly exciting people to 
hatred against, and to the destruction of, re- 
ligion, who will dare to find fault with us 
Christians because we rise to defend our faith 
and our life ? 

However, we should not much wonder at this 
incredible challenge to persecute and annihilate 
the Church with fire and sword. Mr. Quinet 
only repeats, with a faint echo, th& sanguinary 
declamations of the founders of Protestantism. 
He only writes to-day what Luther and Calvin 
wrote three hundred years ago, and wrote in so 
exaggerated terms and with a fury so deep that 
the revolutionists of our times could not hold 
the candle to them. 

In his fine work On Protestantism , Augustus 
Nicolas says: "No language did ever lend 
itself to express the sanguinary violence of 
Luther's writings. His The Papacy of Borne 
Founded by the Devil is a blot that will dis- 
grace forever not only the literature of Germany, 
but even the annals of mankind. The Pope " 
(trulv the pen almost refuses to copy the words) 



196 PLAIN TALK. 

" is the devil. Were I able to kill the devil, 
should I not do it at the peril of my life? The 
Pope is an enraged wolf, against which the 
whole world should rise without waiting for a 
magistrate's warrant. In such matters there 
can never be cause for regret, unless it were for 
not having been able to plunge the dagger 
deeper in his breast. . . . No sooner were the 
Pope convinced by the Gospel, than the whole 
world should rush and fall upon him, slaughter- 
ing him, and with him his emperors and kings 
and princes and lords, without mercy. Yes, 
we should fall upon them with all kinds of 
weapons, and wash our hands in their blood. 
. . . Monarchs and princes and lords who 
belong to the crew of the Roman Sodom should 
be attacked with all kinds of arms, and we 
should wash our hands "in their blood. . . ." 
(T. xii. f. 233, seq. — T. i. f. 51, a. — T. ix. f. 
24, b. ed. Wittenb.) 

" Shall I mention Calvin, whose pen perpet- 
ually flourished the epithets of rascal, drunken 
sot, raving madman, beast, hog, donkey, dog, 
etc.? Hear him: 'As for the Jesuits, who 
are our greatest opponents, they should be put 
to death ; or, if that could not be easily done, 
they should be expelled, or certainly crushed 
out with lies and calumnies.' " (pp. 469, 70.) 



PLAIN TALK. 197 

Just what Quinet advises, — the papacy must 
be rooted out ; it must be dishonored, choked in 
the mire. After such violent declarations by 
Luther and Calvin, it is easily understood why 
the revolutionists of our days have so much 
sympathy for Protestantism. But it is passing 
all understanding how such Protestant journals 
as are called moderate, and Protestant publish- 
ers, should have advertised and offered for sale 
the work of Marnix and its preface ! 

Marnix's book is a tissue of obscenities, of 
infamies so revolting that respect for my readers 
and for self will not allow me to make any 
quotation from it. I made an attempt, but gave 
it up in disgust. He utters blasphemies which 
no Christian should dare to repeat, not even for 
the purpose of inspiring a salutary horror of 
them. And yet, there you have a Protestant 
work, republished, after three centuries, in Bel- 
gium with the aid of a national subscription of 
Protestants, infidels, and free masons ; and it is 
sold in noonday light in Paris, — a Catholic 
city! 

Yes, let Protestants wonder at the generous 
indignation of Catholics ! Let them complain 
because the children of the Church resent and 
repel the insults heaped on their mother ! Let 



198 PLAIN TALK. 

them boast, forsooth, of their meekness and of 
their moderation. 

"Questi moderati sono gente di rabbia inftnita" 
said to me once an Italian priest. They call 
themselves moderate, but their fury is infinite. 

X. Of those Persecutions whereof Prot- 
estants CLAIM TO HAVE BEEN THE VICTIMS. — 
Protestants will always persecute when they 
are the majority ; but if they happen to be 
in the minority they'll whine out doleful tunes 
of being persecuted. To hear them they 
are even this day persecuted in France and in 
Rome, — a charge so strange that we must es- 
tablish it clearly before we refute it. 

Well, then, hear what Mr. Le Savoureux, 
Protestant minister of Limoges, said at a pub- 
lic meeting in Queen Street, Edinburgh, 1857 : 
" I have good news to give you from mother- 
land (France). The faint light of the Gospel 
is advancing. Our fathers allowed Protestant- 
ism to become extinguished, in spite of the 
struggle of our good Huguenots, but the ancient 
national churches are getting up. Such na- 
tions as France, Spain, etc., under the sway of 
Eome are dead nations. Romanism is the 
enemy of moral good. The commune of Ville- 
favard has become Protestant ; we have szvept 



PLAIN TALK. 199 

the Saints out of the Church. We have estab- 
lished ten schools in the department of Allier, 
and, had we money, we Protestants would have 
attained a majority. But since the coup-oVetat 
a man appeared — that Napoleon — who has 
allied himself with Catholic ideas, has closed 
our schools, and summoned us before the courts 
of Justice. We are now hidden in the woods ! 
Yet the progress continues. At Limoges the 
work was broken up by a railroad. Had we 
been Romans the administration would not 
have disturbed us ! " And the Limosin clerk 
winds up by begging God to grant them Lib- 
erty ! 

The Paris correspondent of the " London 
Times " gives even a more melancholy picture of 
the heart-rending situation of Protestantism in 
France. Poor ministers thrown into jail; 
-churches and schools wantonly disbanded. 

Hear these truthful correspondents : " Yes, 
we have seen whole populations taking refuge in 
forests, as their fathers did before them, in 
order to practise their religion. To escape 
the intrusions of the police they had to keep 
watchers to warn them in time. Hymns were 
sung only at intervals, prayers and sermons 
were broken up, And when the officers arrived 
they only saw men, women, and children pick- 



200 PLAIN TALK. 

ing up acorns, or climbing up trees." (Times, 
Jan. 5, 1858.) 

It is well known how these ridiculous asser- 
tions, so often and so impudently repeated 
called forth, at last, a rejoinder from the " Moni- 
teur," denying their truth with indignation and 
contempt. True, not all the Protestants of 
France push so far the mania of complaining, 
whether right or wrong ; yet the majority 
among them seem to find a pleasure in calling 
and believing themselves injured, interfered 
with in both their rights and their interests, 
balked in their movements, in a word, perse- 
cuted. In their writings, in their journals, in 
their sermons, and above all in the courts of 
justice they forever complain to be the victims 
of persecution. 

But what victims, great God ! Would to 
Heaven the Catholics of Ireland and Sweden 
were victims like them ! Never was a creed 
more free and more favored than Protestantism 
is in France this day. Count them : A late 
census set their number at several hundred 
thousand in thirty-six millions of people. Count 
the offices they fill from the highest to the low- 
est. Search the public accounts and compare 
the pay of Protestant ministers with the com- 
pensation given to the Catholic clergy. They 



PLAIN TALK. 201 

are free, not only among their own people but 
even among the Catholics, to employ the most 
active propagandism, free to defend themselves 
and free to attack others. See the relation on 
which their many temples and schools stand to 
their number in Paris, thirteen thousand — after 
official reports. Eemember, that these schools, 
increasing every day in number, in the very 
centre of wards almost exclusively Catholic, 
are filled for the most with the children of the 
poor enticed away from the Church. Remem- 
ber, also, that the works of Marnixde Sainte-Al- 
degonde (it is enough to quote this work for 
all) is sold with impunity by all their book- 
sellers. . • Then, lay your hand on your breast, 
and tell me, reader, can they really call them- 
selves persecuted in France? Indeed, their 
complaints are unjust, and very awkward in 
their ingratitude.* 

* Galignani of Paris, in its issue of Saturday, June 20, 
1867, announces for the next day thirteen places open to Prot- 
estant worship : " Forney's Letters from Europe. " Letter xxv. 
— Phila. : Peterson Bros., 1867. Thus, even in Rome, more 
liberty is allowed to Protestants than Catholics ever obtained 
in purely Protestant countries. At what price could a Catho- 
lic priest officiate in England under Elizabeth? Could a 
priest even make his appearance in Geneva when Calvin ruled 
there ? And was not William Penn called to an account because 
he allowed a mass-house in Philadelphia? And did not the 



202 PLAIN TALK. 

XI. The Market of Souls. — Heretical books 
and pamphlets are spread broadcast all over 
Catholic countries. Yet this distribution, dan- 
gerous and active though it be, is only a second- 
ary means for the agents of the Protestant 
propaganda. There is still a more powerful 
agent, to which they are not ashamed to have 
recourse, — money. Says the Archbishop of 
Genoa, in one of his pastorals : " A unanimous 
cry of indignation re-echoes from all parts of 
Catholic Europe. It would be astonishing in- 
deed, yet a useless effort, were the Protestant 
so reckless as to deny it." 

There is no gainsaying this traffic of con- 
sciences. I know very well that there are among 

Protestants of Maryland put their heels on the neck of the 
Catholics, who had been their greatest benefactors, as soon as 
they got the upper hand ? . . . . And so forever. Now 
look to Rome. Protestants go and come ; some of them civil, 
some very impertinent and insulting. The Pope does not 
mind them. He even allows them to meet at their ambassa- 
dors 7 houses and have service. Point to such privileges in a 
thorough Protestant city : and if the Pope does not allow a 
public meeting-house to be opened in the centre of Rome, no- 
body can blame him, because, the Pope being the Depository 
of Divine Truth he cannot conscientiously countenance the 
manifestations of what is opposed to that truth. Yet he 
allows them to meet extra muros. Rome is the property of the 
Catholic world, not of Italy, and the Pope of Rome holds it in 
trust for the Catholic community scattered all over the world. 



PLAIN TALK. 203 

the Protestants, laity and clergy, who will never 
have recourse to such means. They become in- 
dignant at such charges made against Protestant- 
ism, and I hear with pleasure the energetic 
disavowal in favor of their individual honor ; 
but it avails nothing against the effort of their 
propaganda, which endeavors to entice the poor 
with fat baits of money and temporal gain, 
in order to make them apostatize. Daily ex- 
perience places this assertion beyond the pos- 
sibility of denial. Those who love and help 
the poor continually meet with such attempts 
at seduction ; yet they are very far from know- 
ing them all. The unfortunates, who allow 
themselves to be seduced, are on their guard 
lest their infamy should be known, and secta- 
rian agents limit their reports onty to the num- 
ber of converts. Were we able to judge by the 
number of refusals, the amount of attempts 
would reach a very high figure. I have myself 
come across a large number of artisans' fami- 
lies, and distressed families who have received 
offers of help, work, and gold, sometimes in 
large sums, on condition they would turn Prot- 
estants. The venerable parish priest of St. 
Sulpice, in Paris, on the occasion of an investi- 
gation made in his parish, in 1858, laid before 
the minister of public worship a very lengthy 



204 



PLAIN TALK. 



document containing numerous depositions of 
families and individuals, attesting the criminal 
intrusions of Protestant propagandism. 

"Have you never seen," said an illustrious 
prelate, not long ago, " some of these dealers 
in consciences running over the country, walk- 
ing through our streets, and even worming them 
selves into the bosom of families to sow their 
cockle and their lies? It is a new trade 
amongst us, yet it is spreading alarmingly. 
Attention should be called to it. 

" It happens thus : There is in a village a 
poor family heavily in debt, and they are about 
selling their cabin, — their only place of shelter ; 
but there appears one of these soul-brokers 
who are always on the scent of misfortune. In 
a tone of perfect good nature he tells the head 
cff the family : ' Poor man ! you are badly 
lodged indeed in this cabin, open to all the 
winds ; how you must suffer from cold ! How 
is it that your priest does not help you to re- 
pair your house and to dress yourselves com- 
fortably? . . . Well, I am a Protestant minister, 
but when I find any poor in my parish I assist 
them. Come to my house to-morrow and Fll 
give a warm blanket for your bed, and good 
clothing for your children. \ And off he goes 



PLAIN TALK. 205 

leaving those poor people in an ecstasy of ad- 
miration for so much goodness. 

" The warm blanket arrives, and the parson 
does not tarry far behind. This time he talks 
about repairing the cabin, and he tells them 
that the requisite sum will be at hand, only 
that they are not Protestants. At this the 
woman flares up, and the preacher takes him- 
self off, leaving behind nothing but a bad 
book. 

"Perchance it is a laboring man who falls 
sick. His wife and children depend on his arms 
for their support. Poverty and hunger are bad 
advisers, and often are the source of terrible 
temptations. Those traders on souls know it ; 
they are on the spot, and offer bread to those 
wretches, provided they will barter their souls. 
Alas ! they do it. 

" Near by, a creditor has seized upon the cot 
and the little field of a poor countryman, who 
has nothing else to depend on. The preachers 
offer him cash enough to rescue his property from 
the hammer, provided he gives up his Church. 
With tears he does give it up ! 

" A poor mother begs a living from door to 
door, followed by her two little children. The 
brokers set a couple of their zealous maids after 
her : they wish to take care of her children and 



206 PLAIN TALK. 

bring them up properly. To compound matters 
with her conscience, she gives up one, and re- 
serves the other for God. 

" These traders drive the best bargains with 
drunkards, who are forever in want of money. 
Bankrupts who need a plank, and lewd women 
who have nothing but a rotten soul to sell, are 
also gooi customeis: simpletons and dolts af- 
ford good chances. No matter where you are, 
in hotels or taverns, aboard steamboats, in 
stages, on the highways, you stumble on preach- 
ers, catechizers, Bible carriers, who all seem 
anxious to convert the whole world, each to his 
own sect." * — (Du Commerce des Consciences et 
de Vagitation Protestante en Europe. Annecy, 
1856.) 

France, its large cities, Paris, above all, are 
infested by these indefatigable Protestants. 
Their chiefs have said : " We must get hold of 
Paris by all means : once in Paris France is 
ours : through France we can master Europe." 
Accordingly paid agents and fanatical women, 

* What is here written, as European experience, tallies too 
well with what we see and experience in America. Even this 
very day (Aug. 27, 1867) a parson, not five miles from my 
residence, is tampering with the souls of the children of two 
Catholic families, emboldened by the distance at which they 
are from their Church and their pastor's residence. 



PLAIN TALK. 207 

deacons and deaconesses, etc., creep into the 
dwellings of our poor people and buy them or 
their children. 

The Vicar - General of Lyons, Mr. Cattet, 
thus writes on this subject : — 

" . . . When we were drawing the picture 
of these shameful practices employed by Protest- 
antism for the purpose of proselytizing, we had 
an abundance of affidavits of such poor Catho- 
lics in country places as had thus been seduced, 
who, ashamed of themselves and repenting for 
having sold themselves to the apostles of the 
new gospel, gave us written declarations of the 
contemptible means of seduction employed 
against them. Since then we have forwarded 
to the rector of the Academy of Lyons four 
affidavits from heads of families, who also de- 
clare that they have received money with a 
pledge that their children should attend Prot- 
estant schools.* 

" It was a sensible remark, and we love to 
repeat it, made by one of these bribed wretches 
who has since recanted in the hands of one of 



* Should a law be passed in Italy that agents of English 
and American propagandism were not to give their proselytes 
any money, there would not be one single Protestant in Italy, Yet, 
of course, they are only Protestants in name. 



208 PLAIN TALK. 

our clergy. Torn with remorse and anguish 
after he had touched the price of his apostasy, 
he said to his wife, who also had yielded to the 
tempter : 4 Indeed, woman, I have my doubts 
about a religion that gives money to make itself 
accepted/ 

"In the face of these well-known facts will 
the Committee on Evangelization still maintain 
that no money is given by their party for the 
purpose of making proselytes ? " 

Here we should give statistics ; but it would 
be stepping beyond the bounds of a simple talk. 
Everywhere the same process, and everywhere 
the strong pleading of " cash" to hold fast the 
Catholic poor. "Not a day," say the "An- 
nals of Geneva," " not a day, but we hear of 
some conquest by the god of mammon. Here a 
well-known minister offers work to the laborer 
whom he meets on the road, — work and help for 
the winter ; there a noble lady entraps a servant 
in her carriage to explain the precious benefits 
of the Reformation ; elsewhere a gentleman of 
some sort, who, once foiled, returns by stealth 
and steals from a father his children whom he 
sends to some Protestant asylum, etc." * Every- 

*The " Annals," quoted above, add by way of a note: " We 
should mention Messrs. Oltramare, Jacquet, and Bordier 



PLAIN TALK. 209 

where officious and persevering visits, and the 
circumstance of the priest being poor is im- 
proved upon, and the faith of simple souls is 
ruined, "How is it?" they will say, with a 
look of wonder, to the wretch already soured by 
want, " do not your priests take care of you ? 
Well, never mind, come to see us ; we'll do 
something for you." Then a little talk about 
the wicked priests, and the abuses of the Catho- 
lic Church ; the which is followed by a piece of 
money slipped into the poor man's hand, and 
oh, the glory of having gained a glorious evan- 
gelic campaign ! A Christian that will go to 
mass no more, shall no more make his Easter, 
will hate the priest, — a great gain in the cause 
of the pure gospel! 

Such is this ever-increasing Protestant propa- 
gandism. Such are these immoral conversions, 
no less shameful for those who procure than 
for those who undergo them. Sensible people 
among Protestants as well as among Catholics 
will scarcely believe such trade in souls; and 
yet it is beyond all doubt that money has be- 
come the principal agent of such propagandism. 
In its hands, charity is not a disinterested work ; 



(Protestant ministers in Geneva), who have not the least fear to 
become highly prominent in such visits to poor Catholics." 
U 



210 PLAIN TALK. 

it is the first advance made towards apostasy : 
You are poor, come to us ; we'll give you plenty. 

How bitter that bread must taste bought at 
the price of such an infamy ! 

On the trail of this religious stock-jobbing the 
grand ideas of honor and morality, already so 
weakened, keep on dwindling away, grow 
fainter and fainter: hearts become debased, 
characters lose their strength, convictions crum- 
ble away ; truth- and religion are only a means 
to draw wealth out of the rich and humble the 
poor. 

" To buy " and " to sell," — such are the last 
words of Protestant propagandism. 

XII. A Eeligion of Cash. — 1. A religion 
of money is the name given to the Catholic re- 
ligion by certain Protestant ministers. In con- 
cert with the scoffers of religion they charge our 
priests with selling holy things and trafficking 
on the credulity of the people, to the profit of 
their pockets. 

It is a cunning charge. Nine out of every ten 
men are very sensitive whenever the dollar is 
touched, and to accuse the priests with love of 
money and intent to pilfer it from the poor, 
will go a great length to impair their ministry. 
Protestants know this ; hence they repeat the 



PLAIN TALK. 211 

charge over and over with an exceedingly bad 
faith ; inasmuch as they should be the last to 
utter such an accusation. 

It is not generally known that the place of a 
parson is a most profitable one.* The govern- 
ment in France gives fifteen hundred francs to a 
parson in the smallest villages, and a salary far 
larger to those in cities. Beside this emolument, 
they receive perquisites, which, although not reg- 
ulated by a tariff, are none the less exacted by 
custom. Nor is their amount little. Fees for 
marriages and baptisms in Protestant churches 
amount to a round sum ; bountiful remunera- 
tions are given for funeral services, etc. 

% Add to all this the never-ceasing subscrip- 
tions poured into the treasury of biblical and 
other societies, out of which fat salaries are 
taken to support their apostles. In 1856, at an 
Assembly of the Protestant Propaganda, in 
Germany, it was averred that to their agents 
in France alone the Association had paid eight 
millions. 

Lastly, it should be remembered that in Prot- 
estant countries young ministers generally con- 

* I have it from the very lips of a minister that the smallest 
salary of a parson in Paris is 15,500 francs. The amount ex- 
pended by the American Board of Foreign Missions to support 
their agents, wives, and children is fabulous. 



212 PLAIN TALK. 

tract very good matrimonial alliances. It has 
even been a source of complaint in certain par- 
ishes. Not long ago, in one of the cantons of 
Zurich, at a meeting of young unmarried men it 
was resolved that in future no unmarried minis- 
ter should be accepted, " for they carry away 
the best chances of the place." In other lo- 
calities pastoral Presbyterial Councils, being 
mainly composed of fathers of families who have 
daughters to marry, obstinately refused to re- 
ceive ministers already married, whose hearts 
and hands were, therefore, out of market. 

Now, of all the money that finds its way into 
the minister's pocket not a penny is ever spent 
for church service. 

A temple once built (and of course it is not 
the parson who builds it) requires no other care 
than that of being swept once a week ; there 
are no sacred vestments to take care of, no ex- 
pensive luminaries, no religious pomps. The 
black robe of the parson is called into requisi- 
tion only on Sunday ; it will last a long time 
with so little wear and tear, and when it is be- 
come the worse for wear it can be made avail- 
able for many domestic purposes. 

2. The Catholic parish priest receives from 
the government a little above one-half of the 
salary allowed to Protestant ministers, who are 



PLAIN TALK, 213 

so loud in their denunciation against the religion 
of money, eight hundred and fifty francs to priests 
occupying places of equal degree with those for 
which Protestant parsons receive fifteen hundred. 

But whilst the Protestant parson is under no 
expense as regards church service, different is 
the case with the Catholic priest. In the ritual 
of the Christian worship there exists a material 
portion which entails large expenses even in the 
humblest churches. In the smallest country 
chapel the celebration of the divine service 
needs a supply of bread and wine, lamps and 
candles, sacerdotal vestments of different colors, 
sacred vessels, linen of various qualities ; in a 
word such an amount of indispensable articles 
as would astonish those not acquainted with 
such details. Then you have to pay those who 
are employed in the Church, generally workmen 
who live by their labor. Besides all this the 
parish priest stands, by reason of his position, 
the first and main help of all the poor, and of 
all charitable undertakings in his parish. Should 
ever his heart be faint, his duty and his position 
would spur him on to act. But after all, he must 
live, and feed himself and the servant who waits 
on him. 

It requires very little fairness to acknowledge 
that the Church is perfectly justified in authoriz- 



214 PLAIN TALK. 

ing our priests to levy a kind of tax on the per- 
formance of certain acts of their ministry, in 
order to make up for the great disproportion 
between their salary and their necessary expen- 
ses. They are called " perquisites." Their 
necessity is easily perceived. Before 1792, the 
perquisites in France amounted to very little 
indeed : no payment was required for seats; and 
the little which the priest expected at the hands 
of the faithful was to maintain the right which 
the priest has to live on the altar, and to receive 
from the Christians temporal assistance in ex- 
change for the spiritual benefits bestowed on 
them by their ministrations. 

" If we have sown for you spiritual things, is 
it a great matter if we reap your carnal things ? " 
says St. Paul (1 Cor. ix. 11), not meaning, of 
course, a compensation, which would be simony, 
but a necessary maintenance. Again, " Know ye 
not that they who work in the sanctuary eat of 
the things which are of the sanctuary : and they 
who serve the altar partake of the altar?" (lb. 
13.) 

In France, as well as under the government 
of Florence, and under that of the czar, and of 
the Emperor of Austria, the revolution has set 
everything right; they have taken everything 
from the Church ; they could not kill her, but 



PLAIN TALK. 215 

they have robbed her of everything in hope that 
she may die of starvation. She does not die, 
but her priests must depend on the continued 
liberality of the faithful for their support. Hence 
the necessity of pew-rents ; hence the necessity, 
so painful to the clergy, of often calling on the 
people for contributions, which scarcely provide 
for the most necessary wants. 

Do you call that a money-maJcing religion? 

But there is a money-making religion, mem- 
bers whereof , make their millions every year, 
gathered from public and secret associations; 
and then, with a well-lined purse in hand, they 
climb to. the attics of our mechanics, enter the 
huts of our peasants, take advantage of poverty 
and misfortune, and buy souls at their valua- 
tion of silver ! 

Shame on them for practising that whereof 
they accuse us ! 

XIII. A novel Proof in Favor of Prot- 
estantism. — Whilst Protestantism loses shred 
after shred, torn by the ruggedness of its own 
road, the remnants of truth and Christianity re- 
ceived from the Church, it becomes more and 
more materialistic; it approaches more closely to 
Luther's ideal, — Luther, its first apostle, — and 



216 PLAIN TALK* 

shouts with him, " Let us eat, and let us drink, 
and let's be merry ! " 

Amongst such as have lost the faith by the 
Eeformation, there are nations — England at 
the head of all, — which, by their geographical 
position, or their commercial talents, manage 
their affairs and play their cards well, make 
plenty of money, enjoy all the pleasures of this 
life, such pleasures as are now-a-days consid- 
ered the only and last destiny of man. Now, 
will it be believed that men in their sober 
senses, ministers of the gospel, draw therefrom 
an argument against the Catholic Church ? But 
so it is : " Protestants are better off than Catho- 
lics ; therefore the religion of the former is the 
best." 

A French minister, the writer of a large num- 
ber of tracts, has made the above argument the 
subject of a whole book, which enjoyed a few 
days' popularity. But the author came to a sore 
end of it. For the " Journal des Debats," a 
paper not at all in the interest of Catholicity, 
has demolished the work and broken the argu- 
ment beyond any hope of life. 

Head now : — 

u 4 Catholic and Protestant Nations Consid- 
ered, under the threefold Aspect of Prosperity, 
Enlightenment , and Morality ; by Napoleon Rous- 



PLAIN TALK. 217 

sel, a Minister. 9 When we opened this book we 
hoped to be able to write in its favor. But, in 
spite of the best intentions, we cannot view it as 
a good book or as a good act. The author has 
written a book, the key-note whereof is the most 
stupid and most demoralizing materialism. In- 
deed, if a minister of the gospel has no other mor- 
al, but such, to present to the world ; if Protest- 
ant or Catholic, he can draw no better conclusion 
from the reading of history, then there is nothing 
left for man to do but have a good time, good 
eaticg, and good drinking ; and the more money 
you have the better man you'll be ; — such read^ 
ing chokes the heart. 

" Mr. Eoussel intended to institute a compari- 
son between Catholic and Protestant nations 
under the threefold relation of prosperity, en- 
lightment, and morality. Unfortunately, in such 
comparison, morality, which should take the head 
place, occupies only the last and the smallest ; 
then comes the enlightenment: but well-being 
stands at the head of all, as announced. . . 

" In two volumes does Mr. Koussel demon- 
strate, with man} r figures, that Protestants are 
in this world more happy than Catholics ; that 
they have larger incomes, possess more stock, 
richer silver sets at table, more shirts, and a 
larger assortment of shoes. Until now we have 



218 PLAIN TALK. 

believed that, at the last judgment, God would 
place the good on one side and the wicked on 
the other ; but, according to Mr. Roussel, man- 
kind will be divided into two different classes, — 
the fat and the lean. God shall no more search 
the hearts and the reins, but the bellies of men. 
Were Mr. Roussel to give Saint Peter the keep- 
ing of the gates of heaven, he would give as a 
countersign that no person should enter unless 
of elegant manners and well dressed : Protest- 
ant theology requires, in order to be saved, that 
a decent dress is indispensable. . . . 

" It is worth its while to see how self-pleased 
Mr. Roussel is in squaring up the accounts of 
Catholic countries and of Protestant countries : 
it is a regular keeping of books in Double En- 
,try. 

" On the ground of temporal welfare Mr. 
Roussel and Protestantism are the masters ; 
they are the wealthiest. Compare, for instance, 
sad and beggared Ireland with her Protestant 
sisters ! Mr. Roussel exhibits, from official re- 
ports, the schedule of a parish of four thousand 
inhabitants, all Catholics, — a circumstance he 
takes particular pains to have noted down. 
Now these four thousand Catholics own, be- 
tween all, one cart, one plough, sixteen harrows, 
eight saddles for men, two side-saddles, seven 



PLAIN TALK. 219 

table-forks, ninety-six jaunting-cars, two hun- 
dred and forty-three stools, twenty-seven geese, 
three turkeys, two mattresses, eight ticks, eight 
brass candlesticks, three watches, one school, 
one priest, but no hats, no clock, no boots, no 
turnips, and no carrots. ... A stop to this 
catalogue. Mr. Roussel goes on whole pages ; 
and, after having thus gone his round of the hos- 
pital, he exclaims, with a feeling of triumph : 
'Let us cross the Channel, and after having 
visited Catholic Ireland and her misery, let us 
examine Protestant Scotland and her pros- 
perity/ 

" Like those who have the jaundice, and to 
whom every object appears tinted in yellow, 
Mr. Roussel unearths things from depths into 
which none would think he could penetrate. 
Proceeding in his tour he pits Catholic Switzer- 
land against Switzerland Protestant. Here you 
have a traveller who arrives in a Catholic can- 
ton and at once exclaims : i How nasty ! how 
yellow, black, and livid they look ! ' Then no 
doubt about it : all Catholics are yellow. But 
here is another impression : ' We arrived in 
about two hours at Fluelen : this hold of Ca- 
tholicism was announced by four people with 
goitres, six more who had the itch, and yet half 
a dozen ragged fellows who seemed to come out 



220 



PLAIN TALK. 



of the grave. . . .' You see how things 
improve in his journey ; at first the Catholics 
were yellow, but then they all have the itch. Let 
us turn from such saddening sight, and look to 
the bright vista of a Protestant land : ' Oh, what 
dales ! what a cultivation ! ' exclaims Mr. Eous- 
sel. ' What abundance ! what industry ! Zurich 
and its beautiful environs appear to me like 
the abode of wisdom, of moderation, of comfort, 
and of happiness. . . . We entered a cabin, 
and were presented by its mistress with milk and 
cherries, who also laid on the table nine or ten 
silver spoons. . . .' Mind it well : ten sil- 
ver spoons ! Oh, what a holy people ! Those 
yellow Catholics, and livid peasants could never 
show the like ! No, indeed ! But do j ou fancy 
to follow Mr. Eoussel into Spain? Even there, 
by dint of many quotations, he will prove to 
your heart's content that the roads are out of 
repair, the inns are dirty, and people must eat 
on pewter plates. Then, oh, what a contrast be- 
tween that country and England, that land of 
Protestantism, endearing itself by its silver 
plate, railroads, white line, etc. ! 

" But we are not bound to follow Mr. Eoussel 
in all his peregrinations ; we do not doubt the 
accuracy of his statements, and we allow his 
Protestantism the benefit of its silver ware. At 



PLAIN TALK. 221 

the same time did he not feel some compunction 
as he was wending his way through Ireland? 
Did he ever ask himself whether the Protestants 
were not somewhat to be blamed for the misery 
which harrows that Catholic country? If the 
Protestants represent only one-tenth of the pop- 
ulation, what right have they to lay their hand3 
on the whole property and revenues of the Cath- 
olic Church ? But when Mr. Eoussel attempts 
to show that Catholics are no more oppressed 
in Ireland, because there are four archbishops, 
twenty-three bishops,* two thousand five hun- 
dred churches, more than two thousand priests 
in Ireland, was he so insensible to every notion 
of admiration for a people who yet out of their 
poverty support their Church, whilst Protest- 
ant prelates and ministers live on the fat of 
the land, and enjoy all the profits of confisca- 
tion? . . . 

" But Mr. Roussel's most luminous and most 
irresistible arguments are kept in reserve for 
France. Hear him at once : ' Persecuted for 
ages past, robbed of all they had, French Prot- 
estants ought to be to-day, not on a level, but 
under all the rest in point of wealth. Is it not so ? 

* Roussel should on this day add one cardinal, more bishops, 
more priests, more churches, and make the argument eyen 
more forcible against himself. 



222 PLAIN TALK. 

Were we to consult only public opinion, we might 
say that the reader's conscience has already 
given its verdict. . . . ' Please observe the 
queer office that conscience has to fill up here. 
But let him continue : ' We do not intend to 
make any assertion, even with evidence before 
our eyes, unless we can rest on arguments ; and 
those we have presented on this matter are all 
authentic and of the gravest bearing on the 
question. . . . ' Here, we have trembled for 
Catholicity. What is coming ? What thunder 
is going to fall on its head ? Let us breathe 
freely ! It is a bag of dollars* — a shower of big 
coppers. Mr. Roussel informs us that he has 
secured an abstract of the taxes on personal 
property paid by the Protestants in the Depart- 
ment of the Seine. The list is stereotyped; 
he holds it in his hand, and, on such basis, 
he avers that the average amount paid by all 
the inhabitants of Paris is thirty-three francs, 
fourteen centimes; whereas, what is paid, on an 
average, by the Protestants is eighty-seven francs, 
one centeme; whereupon he remarks: 'French 
Protestants own three times as much wealth as 
their Roman Catholic countrymen.' Catholicity 
must knock under at such a blow. Undoubt- 
edly it will never get. over this statement of the 
tax on personal property. But why did not 



PLAIN TALK. 223 

Mr. Roussel, while busy in adding and sub- 
tracting, why did he not examine another 
book of taxes, — those paid by a class of people 
whom certainly we do not wish to offend, but 
who pay very considerable taxes for personal 
property, — we mean the Jews ? In that case 
he would have found the Israelites far more 
rich, and accordingly far more virtuous, than 
the Protestants. 

" Once more, we do not wish to contradict 
Mr. Roussel' s statement, nor mar his happiness. 
Let him stand, in his glory, on the top of his 
pyramid built by blocks of dollars and cents, 
and shout Gloria in Excelsis. Some one has 
said that it is easier for a camel to pass through 
the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter 
into the kingdom of God. We might make one or 
two more quotations far better to the point than 
those of Mr. Roussel ; but it is not our province 
to write a sermon. Perhaps it was an honest 
wish of Mr. Roussel to write a moral and relig- 
ious book ; but a sectarian spirit has blinded 
him, and to our regret we must repeat that the 
conclusions he comes to are essentially ma- 
terialistic [Signed.] 

"J. Lemoinne." 

XIV. How Catholics and Protestants 



224 PLAIN TALK. 

observe Sunday. — A comparison often made 
between the strict observance of the Sabbath 
in Protestant England and its disregard in many 
of the largest cities of France has led to con- 
clusions in behalf of Protestantism. 

Now, beside the fact that French cities can 
no longer be considered as Catholic cities, the 
difference in question arises from the fact that 
in England, and in Protestant cities, the civil 
law lends its aid to the law religious, and 
employs its power to preserve the quiet of the 
Lord's day. Protestantism has nothing to do 
with it ; has no merit in it. In fact, Protestants 
who live in places where there exists no such 
law, as in France, observe the Sunday not a 
whit better than bad Catholics. On the other 
hand, in Catholic countries, such as Spain and 
Italy, where the civil law works hand-in-hand 
with the religious, Sunday is observed as strictly 
as in London, Basle, or Geneva. Add to this 
that, in Protestant countries, there are also 
many Catholics who, subjected to the same law, 
no more violate the Lord's day than their Cal- 
vinistic or Anglican neighbors. Then, the rigid 
observance of the Sabbath in England and in 
Switzerland is merely a local fact ; it is the 
happy working of a civil law, not a deep re- 
ligious feeling. Were such a law to be enacted 



PLAIN TALK. 225 

in France, those who now violate the sanctity 
of Sunday, for want of a spirit of faith, would 
act as the generality of unbelieving English- 
men do ; they would observe it out of respect 
for authority or fear of the police. 

It is worth its while to remember that this 
observance of the Sabbath, — in which, after all, 
the only Protestant worship consists, — not only 
has no foundation in the Bible, but it is in 
flagrant contradiction with its letter, which 
commands rest on the Sabbath, which is Sat- 
urday. It was the Catholic Church which, by 
the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred 
this rest to the Sunday in remembrance of the 
resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance 
of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage 
they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority 
of the Church. 

I shall conclude by observing that the Lord's 
day is observed with far more intelligence and 
Christian freedom by true Catholics than by 
Protestants. In London, the playing of music 
in one's house is forbidden ; children are for- 
bidden to play with marbles, or hoops ; all 
public monuments are shut up ; a promenade is 
looked upon as improper. It is pharisaism, 
not fidelity. 

15 



226 PLAIN TALK.', 

XV. The Conduct of Protestants towards 
the Mother of God. — It is a very queer way 
of honoring the son by insulting and despising 
his mother. Now, the Blessed Virgin is the 
mother of Jesus Christ ; yet all Protestant 
sects join- together to lay her aside with a dis- 
dain often amounting to spite and indignation.* 

It is a shameful conduct, and nothing, even 
on Protestant principles, can excuse it. 

Mary is the Mother of Jesus ; but Jesus is 
God ; therefore, Mary is the Mother of God. 
Passing strange that men who call themselves 
Christians refuse to honor the Mother of the 
God of Christians — her who has given us this 
God-Saviour ! Passing strange, indeed, that 
subjects who call themselves faithful and de- 
voted to this Sovereign should deny his Mother 
reverence and honor ! 

The angel appearing to the Virgin Mary, to 
obtain her consent for the grand mystery of the 
Incarnation, addressed her in words of most 
respectful affection : " Hail, full of grace ! 
. . . Blessed art thou among women ! " 

The Catholic follows the example of the good 
and faithful angel, who honors the Mother of 
his God ; whereas. Protestants prefer to follow 

* See proceedings of the late Pan-Anglican Synod. 



PLAIN TALK. 227 

the lead of the false and unfaithful fallen 
angel, — him of whom God hath said from the 
beginning : "I will put enmity between thee 
and the woman, . . She shall crush thy head ! " 
(Gen. iii.) 

When the Holy Virgin, bearing the Redeemer 
of the world, entered into the house of Zach- 
ariah, and saluted Elizabeth, the latter was 
filled with the Holy Spirit, and she cried out with 
a loud voice, and said: " ... Whence is 
this to me, that the mother of my Lord should 
come to me? Blessed art thou among women, 
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." 

We Catholics follow the example of St. 
Elizabeth, and, led by the inspiration of the 
same spirit of truth, we love to attest our 
gratitude, our veneration, and our affection for 
Mary. The Protestant sects follow the sense- 
less people of Bethlehem, who, whilst looking 
for the coming of Messiah, refused to receive 
Mary ; ignoring that it was she, and she alone, 
who bore Jesus the Messiah ! 

To the homage paid to her by Elizabeth, 
Mary hymned the canticle of her triumphs : 
"Henceforth all generations will call me blessed 
because the Mighty One has done great things 
for me." * 

* In raising her to so high a dignity. (Abp. Kenrick.) 



228 PLAIN TALK. 

Now, who are these generations, which, ful- 
filling this prophecy, — this word of the Bible, — 
give Mart the appellation of Blessed ? 

Are they the Catholics, who, in the crypts of 
the catacombs as well as under the domes of 
the most magnificent churches, sing hymns of 
praise to the Blessed Name of Mary? Or, are 
they the Protestant generations, who have for 
the Blessed Virgin neither respect nor praise, 
and who believe they honor her enough if they 
insult her not?* 

Nothing clearer, nothing more glorious for 
Mary than these words of Holy Writ. But Prot- 
estants will still oppose to them certain words 
of our Lord to his Mother, — words so mysteri- 
ous that no one can fathom their depth, and 
which aim at naught else but to make Mary 
share in the annihilation of the Redemption, 
as she had from the beginning partaken of the 
joys and glories of the Incarnation. 

Were these words to be taken according to 
f Protestant, interpretation, we must needs con- 

* A dignitary of the Episcopal Church has said from one of 
our Boston pulpits that " Mary, after all, was no more than 
any other woman." 

f Some Protestants, actually maniacs in their hatred for 
Mary, have even attacked her perpetual virginity (to say 
nothing of those who have called her an adulteress) ; because 



, PLAIN TALK. 229 

elude that Jesus did not love his Mother, honored 
her not, and was a bad son, and violated the 
fourth commandment of his own law, to wit : 
" Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother." 
Who wishes to prove top much proves nothing. 
Qui nimium probata nihil probat. 

After his Father in heaven, our Lord loved 
none so intensely as he did his mother. Besides 
her being his mother, she is the humblest, the 
purest, the holiest of all creatures. Thus Jesus 
loved Mary with a love peculiar to himself. In 
our love and respect for Mary we conform our- 
selves to the sentiments of Jesus, and practise 
also, although very imperfectly, the great rule 
laid down by St. Paul, "Have this mind in your- 
selves, which also was in Christ Jesus ; " that is, 
love what Christ hath loved (Ph. ii. 5). 

there are passages in the gospel making allusion to some 
brothers of the Lord. Have they not heard that in the East, 
even in our own days, the name of brother is given to the near- 
est kin ? Oriental languages have not a word to express the 
relationship of cousin; and the Bible, among other instances, 
introduces Abraham, addressing his nephew, Lot, thus : " Let 
there be no quarrel, I beseech thee, between me and thee; . . . for 
we are brethren." (Gen. xiii. 8.) St. James, who was a cousin- 
german of our Saviour, is often called brother of the Lord. 

The dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary is confirmed 
by all the monuments of the apostolic times. Whoever dares 
to dispute its truth is devoid of Christian feeling, has no 
Christian decency. 



230 PLAIN TALK. 

We invoke the Blessed Virgin in our wants, 
because we know that she has power over the 
heart of her Son, and that the first of our Sav- 
iour's miracles was performed at the request of 
his mother. 

As the Father has given us Jesus through 
Mary, so also he willeth that all the gifts of 
Jesus should come to us through the same chan- 
nel. Mary is not our mediatrix of redemption, — 
Christ Jesus alone has ransomed us and saved 
us. But she is a mediatrix by intercession, by 
tender affection for us ; she is our advocate, our 
adopted mother. We beg her protection near 
the good God, just as a child flies to its mother 
to interest her to obtain what it wishes from the 
father. 

In fact, the honor Christians pay to Mary 
ascends direct to Jesus Christ : the Son is hon- 
ored in his Mother. We love and praise Mary, 
because we wish to congratulate her on her be- 
ing the mother of Jesus, and to thank her be- 
cause she has given Him to us. The worship 
of honor rendered by us to Mary is a safeguard 
to the worship of adoration which we are bound 
to render to Jesus, and what we witness every 
day is a triumphant proof of our assertion. For 
it is reserved for the Catholic Church, accused 
as she is of forgetting Jesus for the sake of 






PLAIN TALK. 231 

Mary, — the Creator for the creature, — it is 
reserved for her alone to hold up and defend 
against Protestant infidelity the divinity of that 
only Mediator, of whose honor heresy hypocrit- 
ically feigns to be so jealous, and yet denies his 
Divine Nature every day.* 

XVI. Protestantism is disheartening. — 
God is the Maker of both the heart of man and 
of the Catholic Church ; and God has made the 
Catholic Church wonderfully adapted to all the 
needs and requirements of the human heart.f 

Her doctrinal authority meets our wants for 
a belief, for without authority there is no faith. 
The ceremonies of her ritual satisfy our nature, 
composed as it is of body and soul, and need- 
ing to blend material elements to the purely 
spiritual acts of her adorations. Confession fills 

* Augustus Nicolas has published a work entitled, " Phil- 
osophical Studies on the Blessed Virgin. — The Virgin Mary 
and the Divine Plan. — The Virgin Mary in the Gospel. — 
The Virgin Mary living in the Chureh." All the difficulties 
raised against the worship of the Mother of Ood are perempto- 
rily met and demolished. Said an enlightened magistrate: 
"Mr. Nicolas, no Protestant oan remain such after reading 
your book." 

f See "The Functions of the Subjective in Religion," by Very 
Rev. W. H. Anderson, D. D., M. A., Oxon., in "The CatholifJ 
World," Nov., 1867, xr%. 175, etc. 



232 PLAIN TALK. 

the want of penance and mercy, — a want felt at 
the very bottom of the sinful soul. The invoca- 
tion of saints, the prayers offered for the de- 
parted souls, foster the sentiment of eternal 
union of souls with God and of solidarity of 
men among themselves, — and so on with all 
the dogmas, all the precepts, and all the prac- 
tices of the Church. 

Protestantism is cold, formal, naked, just 
like the walls of its temples, wherein only the 
absence of God is felt. 

Oh, the poor soul, estranged or wilful, who, 
like the prodigal son in the Gospel, quits the 
father's home to wander over the distant and 
dismal lands of error ! — once out of the bracing 
atmosphere wherein God had, in his mercy, 
placed her birth, she breathes only in a frozen 
blast, and finds naught but void and desolation. 

As for him who becomes a Protestant, no 
hope of control when passion rages, yet great 
comfort at the moment he repents, — no guide 
when doubt tosses him about, yet a more boun- 
tiful pardon after his fall, a more merciful con- 
fessor to console him, and to pardon him in the 
name and with the authority of God. Poor 
apostate ! for him no more the beautiful cere- 
monies of the Church. The images of our Lord, 
of the Blessed Virgin, and of the saints, become 



PLAIN TALK. 233 

emblems of idolatry ! — no more crucifix, no 
more the sign of the cross : it is idolatry ! — no 
more prayers ; no more respect or love for the 
Mother of God : idolatry ! — no more trusting 
the intercession of saints, patrons in heaven, 
advocates, protectors near God : idolatry ! 

And when the hour of death is drawing near, 
— when the unfortunate man is left to himself \ 
about standing before God covered with the sins 
of his whole life, — no priest to administer the 
last sacraments of the Church, no priest to tell 
him in all the power of divine authority, 
" Poor sinner, take courage ; thou canst die in 
peace, because Jesus has given me the power to 
forgive thee thy sins, and I pardon thee in his 
name." 

Nor is this all. The apostate's body shall 
not be carried to the Church ; it shall be carried 
straight on to an unblessed place of burial, — 
unblessed, because such benedictions are only 
idolatry in the eyes of Protestants. Lastly, if 
his children have turned Protestants like their 
father, they are forbidden to pray for their father ; 
for, Protestantism admits neither purgatory nor 
prayers for departed souls : it is all idolatry. 
No, that dreary worship will not allow a prayer 
for the poor dead, nor a compassionate visit to 
their last dwelling-place. Some impotent and 



234 PLAIN TALK. 

\ 
unfelt tears when the last sod of earth falls on 
the coffin, and it is all over between them and 
ourselves ! 

As for myself, I must say, this one thought 
would be ample proof to convince me of the ab- 
solute falseness of Protestantism. The want 
of praying for those whom we have loved and 
lost, is so deep-felt, so peremptory, so natural 
to man's heart, that a religion denying its being 
met, and forbidding its being filled, is condemned 
in advance. 

She only expressed a universal sentiment, 
that poor little girl of ten years old, when be- 
side the dead body of her mother, she said to me 
with a wonderful determination : " When I am 
grown up, and will have become the mistress 
of my own actions, I'll be a Catholic : I do not 
wish to be of a creed which forbids me to love 
the Holy Virgin and to pray for my mother." 

XVII. The Judgment of Death. — It has 
been remarked that death is the echo of life. At 
the solemn approach of death sophisms lose 
their force, illusions melt away, and conscience 
asserts its rights. During the process entered 
by Protestants against the Church, let us ap- 
peal to the verdict of a supreme authority, — 
the verdict of death. 



PLAIN TALK. 235 

There are Protestants who have become Cath- 
olics, and there are Catholics who have turned 
Protestants. Let us watch and see how they die. 

At death's point, as well as during their lives, 
the numberless Protestants who have re-entered 
the pale of the Church were full of hope and in 
a most serene state of mind ; not a word of re- 
gret from their lips, not the least remorse to 
ripple the tranquillity of their souls, not a doubt 
to give them the least anxiety. They believe, 
and love, and pray, and give up their souls to 
God, with thanks because he has received them 
in the Catholic Church ! I defy all the Protest- 
ants in the world to quote one single instance in 
contradiction to this statement. 

All those doctors, and ministers, and men 
highly educated and perfectly independent, who, 
raised in Protestantism, and knowing it to its 
very depth, have abandoned it to become Catho- 
lics, — all, without a single exception, die, like 
the illustrious Count de Stolberg, the greatest 
among them, full of joy and love of God, bless- 
ing him because he had led him to know his 
true Church, and beseeching his children to pray 
for the dead, and to persevere in the Catholic 
Church. After receiving the last sacraments in 
the most humble attitude, he died with these 
words on his lips : u Blessed be Jesus Christ ! " 



236 PLAIN TALK. 

How different the death of apostates ! Even 
when not lost to every sentiment of faith in 
God and in an immortal soul, — even when 
not hardened into materialism and atheism, — 
what anxiety, what pangs of conscience, what 
terrors toss them on the pillow of death ! Then 
they remember that holy Church they have for- 
saken, and why they have forsaken it ! The 
world, with all its endearments and charms, 
fades away from before their eyes, aghast at 
the approaching sight of judgment and eternity ! 
Yea ; if the least belief in the Holy Scripture 
is still alive in their hearts, they remember 
Christ's words, " What doth it profit for man 
to gain the whole world if he loseth his soul? " 

The death-bed of the founders of Protestant- 
ism — all apostates, and, for the most, apos- 
tate priests — bears us out in our assertion, 
and with a terribly overwhelming evidence. 

Luther despaired of the salvation of his 
soul. Shortly before his death his concubine 
pointed to the brilliancy of the stars in the 
firmament. 

" See, Martin, how beautiful that heaven is ! " 

" It does not shine in our behalf/' replied the 
master, moodily. 

"Is it because we have broken our vows?" 
resumed Kate, in dismay 



PLAIN TALK. 237 

" May be," said Luther. 

" If so, let us go back." 

" Too late ! The hearse is stuck in the 
mire," — and he would hear no more. 

At Eilseben, on the day previous to that on 
which he was stricken with apoplexy, he re- 
marked to his friends: "I have almost lost 
sight of the Christ, tossed as I am by these 
waves of despair which overwhelm me." And 
after awhile, " I, who have imparted salvation 
to so many, cannot save myself." 

Above I have quoted his blasphemous testa- 
ment. He died forlorn of God, — blaspheming 
to the very end. His last word was an attesta- 
tion of impenitence. His eldest son, who had 
doubts both about the Reformation and the 
Reform, asked him for a last time whether he 
persevered in the doctrine he preached. " Yes," 
replied a gurgling sound from the old sinner's 
throat, — and Luther was before his God ! * 

" Schusselburg, a Protestant, writes : " Cal- 
vin died of scarlet fever, devoured by vermin, 
and eaten up by an ulcerous abscess, the stench 
whereof drove away every person. " — (Theol. 
Calvin, t. ii. p. 72.) In great misery he gave 
up his rascally ghost, despairing of salvation, 

* The last descendant of Luther died not long ago a fervent 
Catholic. 



238 PLAIN TALK. 

evoking the devils from the abyss, and uttering 
oaths most horrible and blasphemies most 
frightful. 

John Hazen, a disciple of Calvin and an 
eye-witness of his death, writes thus : " Calvin 
died in despair. He died a death hideous and 
revolting, such as God has threatened the 
impious and reprobate with." — (Be vita Cal- 
vini.) And he adds, " I can vouch for the truth 
of what I say, because I have been an eye- 
witness/' 

Spalatin, Justus Jonas, Isinder, and a host 
of other friends of Luther, died either in de- 
spair or crazy. 

Henry VIII. died bewailing that he had lost 
heaven; and his worthy daughter Elizabeth 
breathed her last in deep desolation, stretched 
on the floor, — not daring to lie in bed, because, 
at the first attack of her illness, she thought 
to have seen her body all torn to pieces and 
palpitating in a caldron of fire. 

Let, then, in the presence of such frightful 
deaths and of the thought of eternity, those of 
our unfortunate brethren who may be tempted 
to abandon their Church, remember that a day 
will come when they will also be summoned 
to appear before God ! Let them think, in 
their sober senses, of death and of judgment 



PLAIN TALK. 239 

and of hell, and I pledge my word they will 
not think of becoming Protestants. 

In a place upon the borders of Northern 
Germany formerly lived a priest who had be- 
come careless of all the duties of his state. 
Falling from excess into excess, he went so far 
as to deny his faith, and, fleeing his native 
place, he became a Protestant. Then he secured 
a place, and from a teacher of truth he became 
a teacher of false doctrines. Many years did the 
unfortunate man remain in that state of enmity 
to his God. On a certain occasion he was the 
guest of a famous preacher in a large city, who 
had gathered around his table many pastors of 
the neighborhood. Amid the enjoyments of the 
table, word was sent to the master that a poor 
man had fallen dangerously ill, and seemed to 
be in great need of spiritual assistance. The 
pastor, bound to entertain his guests, could not 
attend the call, and our apostate offered his 
services in his stead. The offer was accepted, 
and he went. He was led to a chamber where 
lay an old man at the point of death, and in 
utmost despair of his salvation. The parson 
read to him some passages from the Scriptures ; 
but to all the dying man replied, " I am lost — 
no pardon for me — woe to me ! I am damned ! " 



240 PLAIN TALK. 

The visitor endeavored to comfort him and 
to inspire him with feelings of confidence. 

" No use," replied the other, " no use ; no 
one can give me help ; the road to heaven is 
closed against me ; my crime is too great ; I 
am lost ! " 

" But, for the love of God, why so? What 
is it that weighs on your heart so heavily ? " 

The dying man replied only by words of 
despair. At last he gave in to the pastor's 
remonstrances, and said, " What renders my 
case hopeless is that I am an apostate priest, 
and then the crimes I have added to my 
apostasy, and my resisting so much to the 
graces of God, and to all the advances of the 
divine mercy, which I have repelled. . . Alas ! 
it is too great a sin for me to sue for pardon ; 
I am lost ; none can bring aid to me ! " 

The disclosure threw the visitor's soul into 
a cruel agony, as he recognized in the sick man 
his own fearful destiny. But his former faith 
worked again in his heart, as he thought of 
the divine and inamissible power given to the 
priest in the Sacrament of Order. Accordingly 
he addressed the wretched man with great feel- 
ing thus : " Dear brother, I can aid you, as sure 
as God exists ; I can give you aid ! . . . I, also, 
am a Catholic priest, believe me ; but, alas ! I am 



PLAIN TALK. 241 

like yourself a renegade and excommunicated ; 
but, with the priestly power I possess, I can 
open the gates of heaven to a dying man." 

The wretched man felt as if an angel had 
come from heaven to give him hope and salva- 
tion. Overwhelmed by such a proof of the 
infinite mercy of his God, who, at the very last 
hour of his life, offered him pardon, and with 
pardon the renewal of all former favors, and 
an assurance of salvation, with sentiments 
of a most vivid sorrow and most sincere 
repentance, he made a confession of his sins, 
received absolution, and died in the peace 
of the Lord. Such a triumph of the divine 
love, that wishes the salvation of all men, and 
goes in quest of the worst sinners to their very 
last breath, made such an impression on him who 
had been chosen to achieve it, and his heart was 
at once so changed by the all-powerful grace of 
God, that he resolved to retrace his steps. 
Accordingly as he re-entered the hall where his 
clerical friends were still enjoying the feast, he 
addressed them thus: " Gentlemen, farewell-! 
I am going back to the bosom of the Gatholie 
Church, that I have so wantonly abandoned. 
I have just witnessed how horrible is the death 
of an apostate. I found myself to be a priest 
still, and I have been an instrument of mercy in 
16 



242 PLAIN TALK. 

in the hands of Goi> ; and now that very in- 
finite mercy calls me also to repentance, to 
reconciliation, and to salvation* Farewell ! " * 

XYIII. Protestantism and> Infidelity. — 
The infidels and rationalists of our times greatly 
sympathize with Protestantism and the work of 
the Reformation; they look upon Lnther and 
Calvin as their grandsires, and they have rea- 
son for it. Protestants who still remain Chris- 
tians will deny it, yet it is a fact that the infi- 
delity which rends modern society is the fatal 
but logical consequence of the religious rebel- 
lion of the sixteenth century. 

The Protestant rejects, on the claim of private 

*Rev. Dr. Wharton, who died in 1832 (?), minister of a 
Protestant church at Elizabethtown, N. J., was born of an 
ancient Catholic family in Maryland related to the famous 
CarroIIs, became a Jesuit, professed in that order, and in 1774 
apostatized in Worcester, England. He married twice. " Poor 
old I>r. Wharton is continually tortured hj his conscience. 
His cook at the parsonage house near Trenton, New Jersey, a 
good Irish Catholic, fell dangerously sick, and, as no priest 
could be procured, "Wharton said to her : r Although I am a 
parson, I am also a Catholic priest, and can give* you absolu- 
tion in your case.' She made her confession and he absolved 
her." Pere Gtrivel, who wrote this letter May 30, 1832, had 
this account from Mr. Wharton's nephew, a good Catholic, and 
a magistrate in Washington. Shortly after, the unhappy man 
was summoned before the tribunal of God* 



PLAIN TALK. 243 

judgment, a part of the Christian truths which 
the Church teaches to the world by the author- 
ity of Christ. The infidel, in the name of the 
same freedom, goes farther and rejects all Chris- 
tian truths. 

The Protestant rejects the Church because 
he does not believe it to be of divine institu- 
tion. The infidel rejects Christ because he does 
not believe him to be really God. 

It is the same principle with both. It is the 
individual reason which takes the place of faith, 
that is, of the submission of the spirit to divine 
authority. The Protestant, whether he believes 
it or not, is an infidel in germ, and the infidel is 
a Protestant in full bloom.* 

Infidelity exists in Protestantism as the oak 
exists in the acorn, as the consequence is in the 
premise. Down the road of negation the de- 
scent is very steep and slippery. If the free- 
dom of judgment in a Lutheran, or his reason, 
or the view he takes, as you may be better 
pleased to call it, leads him to reject the author- 
ity of the Pope, Vicar of Jesus Christ, that same 

*In 1852 we remember a distinguished American reviewer 
to assert that he knew only two consistent Protestants, to wit: 
Dr. Parker and Father Lampson. Our Boston friends, who 
must well remember the eccentricities of the latter, will at once 
see the point. 



244 PLAIN TALK. 

free judgment leads the Calvinist to reject the 
real presence of our Lord in the Eucharist, — a 
dogma, however, preserved by the Lutherans. 
According to the same principle, the Socinians, 
the ministers at Geneva, and a crowd of other 
ministers, following the footsteps of Voltaire 
and Rousseau, reject to-day the divinity of Jesus 
Christ, and therefore abjure Christianity and fall 
back into utter incredulity ; and all in conse- 
quence of that freedom of conscience. But our 
German and French philosophers, rationalists 
and pantheists of all degrees, do not even stop 
at that, — go farther, and deny the existence of a 
God Creator, and all by the privilege of free 
and private judgment. 

Now, I say it again, and all Protestants must 
needs say it with me, this free judgement is 
Protestantism in its essential principle. Then 
Luther, the father of free judgment and of Prot- 
estantism, is the father of all infidelity, the 
father of all anti-Christian negation.* 

Eugene Rendu, in his " Report on Public In- 
struction in Germany," writes : " I was in Jena 
two months before the opening of the Synod 

* Such was the feeling of Henry IV. when he was a stanch 
Calvinist. As regards piety he found Turk and Protestant to 
be alike. Said he to the Marquise of Verneuil : " D — me, 
were I not Huguenot, I'll turn Turk." 



PLAIN TALK. 245 

which was to assemble in Eisenach the pastors 
of the different estates of Germany. Said I to 
a distinguished professor of divinity in the Uni- 
versity of Jena, i Will they discuss dogmatic 
questions and doctrines?' 'No,' he replied, 
fc only liturgy and simple questions of form will 
be deliberated. As for the rest, it is out of ques~ 
tion for us to agree. When we meet on dogmatic 
field, pshaw! it is all over (p$t, tout dispa- 
rait!)'" 

Eugene Sue, at the head of the anti-Christian 
league, among a thousand other things, has 
written the following, which I recommend to the 
careful consideration of all Catholics, and all the 
many Protestants who love truth. He writes : 
" Free men, radical men, and rationalists have 
probably been very indiscreet in attacking Prot- 
estantism, — a sort of transitory religion, . . • 
abridge, so to speak, over which we may reach a 
pure rationalism, at the same time allowing the 
false necessity of a worship, which the mass of 
the people will not as yet know how to do away 
with. . . . We, free-thinkers, well aware 
of dangers inherent to all religions, admit the 
necessity of a religion (transitory, it is true) : 
for, we must say it, we need to distinguish the 
possible from what is desirable. It must be ac- 
knowledged that there are several degrees in evil, 



246 PLAIN TALK. 

and that the least thereof is preferable to the 
whole," * — that is, this "whole evil" is Jesus 
Christ and his Church, religion, and the Catho- 
lics. 

Then passing from theory to practice, Eugene 
Sue draws the impious rules of an association 
whose members shall not baptize their children, 
nor marry with religious rites, nor bring their 
dead to the Church ; in one word, will altogether 
renounce any and every practice of religion. 

Another man, Edgar Quinet, a great herald 
of Protestantism, and son-in-law of a parson, f 
styles the Protestant sects the thousand gates 
open to get out of Christianity. 

You will say, " Our Protestants generally 
speaking do not go so far as that." True : 
there are degrees in Protestantism, and abso- 
lute infidelity is only Protestantism in the high- 
est degree. 

XIX. Protestantism and Revolution. — 
All Protestantism is of itself revolutionist. I 
do not say " all Protestants," but " all Protest- 

* Letter to "Le National Beige," in November, 1856. 

f Whilst we are translating this page, is laid before us the 
account of sects existing this year, 1867, in London, and it 
sums to ninety -Jive, with an et cetera: among the rest that of 
" Countess of Huntington's Connection " ! 



PLAIN TALK. 247 

antism," for I know very well that man Is not 
always so consistent as to make his actions har- 
monize with his belief. Often he is worth more 
for what he does than for what he thinks. As 
we unfortunately meet mad revolutionists among 
Catholics, so we do meet Protestants who are 
sincere lovers of order. But here we do not 
deal with Protestants, but with Protestantism, 
and I say it again, — all Protestantism is revo- 
lutionist. 

Whilst Catholicity is a submission of heart 
and mind to the authority of the Church, Prot- 
estantism is the negation of all authority in 
matters of religion. 

Now, if we once admit the principle that man 
should not acknowledge any religious authority, 
is it not a simple, natural, and logical inference 
that he is no more bound to acknowledge a po- 
litical or civil authority ? 

"Why should not those who have refused 
obedience to the Church, refuse also obedience to 
the State? Protestantism, — that is, the rebellion 
against religious authority, — contains in its 
bowels the seed of rebellion against all political 
authority. 

" The history of Protestantism gives a most 
luminous proof of this truth. Wherever it was 
proclaimed, its first appeal to Christians to re- 



248 PLAIK TALK, 

volt against the Pope was immediately suc- 
ceeded by an appeal to the nations to rebel 
against their sovereigns. The very tongues of 
the leaders of the Reformation, who uttered 
these atrocious blasphemies against the Head 
of the Church, belched forth afterward the 
bloodiest insults against the heads of the State. 
For such geniuses of disorder, whilst the Sover- 
eign Pontiff was only a tyrant, princes were 
monsters, and the religious wars, which in those 
wretched days covered with blood the fields of 
Germany, England, and France, were not, after 
all, but wars of revolution.* 

" Since then, Protestantism has ever sympa- 
thized with rebellions, and every rebellion has 
given to Protestantism its most unequivocal 
testimony of sympathy, Protestantism has ever 
been radically revolutionist, as every rebellion 
has essentially been Protestant. 

" The spirit of rebellion, which, within a few 
years past, has convulsed certain Catholic coun- 
tries, was begotten in the bosom of Protestant 
peoples. It is since the Reformation has failed 
to upset the altar, that thrones have been shaken 
to their foundation. The revolution of Catholic 

* Our American readers are greatly mistaken, if they believe 
for one moment that the present wars in Italy are actually 
Waged for the sake of liberty. 



PLAIN TALK, 2A9 

France was only a bloody repetition of the rev- 
olution of Protestant England. English Prot- 
estantism can alone claim the glory — a sad 
glory — of having introduced into Christian 
Europe the pagan fashion of assassinating kings 
juridically." * 

Having this common origin, Protestantism 
and revolution meet together in one mass. Hon- 
est Protestants, it is true, repel such an union, 
which frightens them. Yet it is accomplished 
by a sort of fatality, such as influenced the 
principle of the Reformation , and the most out- 
spoken organs of socialism proclaim it most 
loudly. 

Quinet writes : " I address myself to all be- 
liefs, to all religions, who have fought Rome: 

THEY ALL ARE, WHETHER THEY WILL IT OR NOT, 

on our side ; for, after all, their existence is as 
irreconcilable as ours with the rule of Rome." 

Louis Blanc says: "Every religious Luther 
necessarily avers a Luther political" 

Mazzini, Garibaldi, and those other adven- 
turers, who some years ago held under an igno- 
ble yoke the capital of the Christian world, found 
no better means to give root to, and make a 

* Sermons preached at the Tuileries, before the Emperor, in 
1857, by Fr. Ventura. 4th sermon. 



250 PLAIN TALK. 

social revolution thrive in Italy, than by intro- 
ducing Protestantism. Thousands of falsified, 
spurious Bibles were distributed in Rome, and a 
project was on foot to give to Protestants the 
Church of the Pantheon, in the very heart of 
Rome. In 1850 Garibaldi said to the Protest- 
ant minister Pozzi, while entrusting the educa- 
tion of his son to him : " The Bible is the cannon 
that will open Italy to us" 

However, the shameless publications of mod- 
ern revolutionists are open to the inspection of 
Protestants as they are to us. Let them exam- 
ine them. With a unanimous voice the revo- 
lutionists applaud Protestantism, the religious 
form of revolution. 

It is a fact well worth the study of serious 
men ; it is a fact undeniable and public. Such 
as are indifferent to the sacred interest of faith 
should feel some anxiety about the dangers 
which threaten the domestic hearth. 

" Socialism is only a Protestantism against 
society, as Protestantism is socialism against 
the Church." * 



* Aug. Nicolas' " Du Protestantism et de toutes les Here- 
sies dans leur rapport avec le Socialisme." It is a remarkable 
work and it cannot be recommended bighly enough to those 
who wish to probe deeply the questions and truths at which wo 



PLAIN TALK. 251 

XX. Protestantism in Catholic Coun- 
tries.* — France is Catholic to the core. She 
has too much good sense and logic to be sus- 
ceptible of any other religion. She may become 
infidel, but Protestant — never. 

Whenever Protestantism met with encourage- 
ment in France, it was with the revolutionary 
party that had revolted against the lawful au- 
thority. If its standard ever covered French- 
men, those Frenchmen were traitors who con- 
spired with the foreigner and fomented civil 
war. If, outside of such followers, it ever ral- 
lied around its folds friends and supporters, it 
was because of its revolutionary idea, and such 
partisans do not add much to its glory. 

There is nothing in Protestantism but what is 
repulsive to the French spirit. Protestantism 
contradicts itself and can stand no examination. 
It is stiff and unnatural : its formal authority 
only enacts the cold presumption of the Phari- 
see : it has no resources from which either rea- 
son or imagination on the heart can draw. 

have only hinted. See also on this matter Fr. Perrone's " Prot- 
estantism and the Rule of Faith." 

* This last article is headed, " Le Protestantism n'est pas 
Francais." What the learned author says about France can as 
properly be applied to Spain and Italy, and all Catholic coun- 
tries. 



252 PLAIN TALK, 

On the other hand Protestantism does not 
feel at home in France. What the French love, 
Protestantism loathes ; and what the latter loves, 
France does not love at all. It is in England, 
the genuine centre of Protestantism in the world, 
where its fondest hopes are centred, and will 
be realized, that the propagandism of France is 
nurtured, fed chiefly by foreign aid, probably 
more political in its nature than religious. 

France would never countenance king or 
queen that were not Catholics. Henry IV., a 
prince so beloved by the sires of the French 
people, was held aloof as long as he remained a 
Huguenot. Never did a Protestant male or fe- 
male sit on the throne of France. An attempt 
of this kind was made within our memory,* but 
God, who holds France in his keeping, mani- 
fested his judgment with terrible and summary 
punishment. 

France shall cease to be herself when she 
will cease to be The Oldest Daughter of the 
Church ! 



CONCLUSION. 

And now, farewell, my reader. My dear 

* The author alludes to the Duke of Orleans, son of Louis 
Philippe, — the renegade son of a perjured father. 



PLAIN TALK. 253 

friend, pray for me, if this little work has done 
any good to you. Pray, also, for those who 
may read it. 

I have addressed myself to your good sease, 
and to your loyalty, and I have hopes that I 
have made you lay your finger on the deep 
misery of what is called Protestantism ! 

Should you ever have any occasion to have a 
discussion with a Protestant, be cautious and 
charitable. Never allow yourself to be thrown 
out of the track of the straightforward path, 
clear, and practical, of good sense. Enter not 
into fruitless questions, which are only fit, as 
Paul puts it, to trouble and estrange souls. Eefer 
cavillers, quibblers, and inventors of new relig- 
ions, to your parish priest. 

As for yourselves, keep the faith: be do- 
cile and faithful children of the holy Catholic 
Church, who is the teacher of true piety, and 
the infallible depositary of Christian truths. 
Practise your faith with fervor and love : pray 
much and receive communion often : love with 
a deep-hearted love Jesus Christ your Saviour, 
the Blessed Virgin his Mother, the Pope the 
visible representative of your Redeemer. In a 
word, live so that you may, when the days of 
your pilgrimage on earth will be over, reach 
God and live with him forever! 



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